Julius Shulman, 1910-2009, was an active architectural photographer from 1936 until 1986. Representing his career, the archive documents the modern movement in architecture spanning several decades and serves as a historical record of the Southern California landscape and is in the collection of the Getty Research Institute. Thousands of photographs from the collection were digitized and can now be accessed in high resolution online. The digital files are also preserved in the GRI’s digital preservation system using an Ex Libris product, Rosetta.

2. Julius Shulman, 1910-2009, was an
active architectural photographer
from 1936 until 1986. Representing
his career, the archive documents
the modern movement in architecture
spanning several decades and
serves as a historical record of the
Southern California landscape.
Shulman's prolific career has helped
to promote and broaden the
knowledge of modern architecture by
the thoughtful manner which he
conveyed architectural design.
Job 130: Wurdeman & Becket, Bullock's (Department store), (Pasadena, Calif.), 1947
Teresa Soleau – Endless Images 2016

3. Job 1108: Don Williamson, Laguna Beach Bank, 1951
Teresa Soleau – Endless Images 2016

4. • Project completed over a number of years (2010-2013) with different
vendors, funders and project team members
• Portions of Series II, III and IV were digitized totally ca. 5,500 “jobs” and
ca. 52,000 images.
• Most imaging done in-house but some early work outsourced to Cinetech
• Funding from multiple sources including Mellon and NHPRC
• Some reformatting done with goal to add to ARTStor and Calisphere
• Often combined with reformatting of other photograph collections - namely
Leonard Nadel and Alexander Liberman collections
Teresa Soleau – Endless Images 2016

5. Created 3 representations for each image:
1.) Preservation master representation - 16-bit tifs
• highest quality file we have, only accessible to staff
• image files contain color target for prints
• Not color-corrected for color images
2.) Modified master representation - 8-bit tifs
• mezzanine level file, only accessible to staff
• color target cropped out and color images corrected
3.) Access representation - jpegs
• web quality file, accessible to patrons
• still high resolution (3,000 pixels on long edge)
Teresa Soleau – Endless Images 2016

6. • For color images that were color-shifted, we made the decision to leave
preservation master files as captured from media, but color correct
modified master and access files
Job 1940: Closets, 1955
Teresa Soleau – Endless Images 2016

7. Teresa Soleau – Endless Images 2016

8. Subset of Images available
for discovery and download -
ca. 6,000
Links in these systems
lead back to GRI Digital
Collections for download
Teresa Soleau – Endless Images 2016

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17. • Contains 120TB total
• 1,600,000 files and growing
• Went live in June 2013 (3 years ago)
• Actively participate in Rosetta User Group
• 15 institutions in North America and over 100 worldwide
Teresa Soleau – Endless Images 2016

18. Validation stack
• fixity calculation
• file format identification (using DROID)
• technical metadata extracted for many file types (using Jhove)
• alerts for corrupt/non-standard files
• virus check (we’re currently doing this outside the system)
• risk assessment (specific to your institutional capabilities)
Complex storage rules
• saving master files differently than access files
• master files are saved to tape nightly
• replicated to off-site tape and to cloud storage
• access files remain on spinning disk (readily accessible)
Provenance/Event metadata (PREMIS-based)
Teresa Soleau – Endless Images 2016

19. • IIIF - International Image
Interoperability Framework
• Linked Open Data
• Collaboration with
HistoricPlacesLA
Job 2745: Austin, Field and Fry, First Federal
Savings and Loan (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1959
Teresa Soleau – Endless Images 2016

20. Teresa Soleau – Endless Images 2016