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| Images from: Little Sarah.
(Boston : W. J. Reynolds & Co., [1851?]) |
COLOR IN LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN
One of the ways to gauge the place of color in children's
literature is to consider not only its denotative value
but also, and perhaps more importantly, its connotative
influence on readers. John
Cech, author of studies on children's literature, in
support of this project, has noted:
"aesthetically, color illustration offered the artist
a new, wider vocabulary for representation, thus contributing
dramatically to an expansion of the emotional meaning and
other visual information … in a given work".
In Myth, Magic, and Mystery : One Hundred Years of American
Children's Book Illustration (Boulder, CO : Roberts Rinehart
Publishers, 1996), Michael Patrick Hearn quoted James Johnson
Sweeney, former director of the Museum of Modern Art as
follows:
"… children's book illustration should never
be seen as merely a vessel for the conveyance of information.
Its real role is that played by a Gothic stained glass window
in the Middle Ages, or a mosaic in the apse of a Romanesque
church."
Although not specifically stating the nature of the illustrations
(i.e., color and/or black and white) it is very clear from
the two examples that he gives, that he has color in mind:
Gothic stained glass and Romanesque mosaics were rather
seldom done in anything other than color. In the same vein, Lucy
Rollin, another author of studies on children's literature,
in support of this project, wrote:
"Our culture creates, uses, and responds to literature,
even what might be considered ephemeral, for it is in the
ephemera, really, that a culture truly reveals itself; such
artifacts are its unguarded moments."
Through the end of the 18th century only a very small
portion of book illustrations were colored, and then only
by hand. Such extra effort was expensive, and therefore
available only to the privileged few who could afford to
present their children with more realistic representations
of the world about them. With the full-blown implementation
and acceptance of mechanical color printing during the 19th
century, such "natural" representations of the
real world - and indeed of the fantastic world of the imagination
- moved from the privileged few to the mass market. Peter
Hunt, in his Children's Literature, an Illustrated History
(Oxford, England : Oxford University Press, 1995), provides
the locus for explanation:
"For most of the early nineteenth century, colour
book illustrations had meant colouring by hand, but the
development of mechanical colour printing, especially by
Edmund Evans, brought an immense improvement in coloured
picture-books for children in the last quarter of the century."
COLORING BY HAND
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| Image from: A B C of
games. (London : Pubd. by A. Park, [ca. 1855]) |
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| Image from variant states
of: Jingles & jokes for little folks. (New York
: McLoughlin Bros., c1869.) |
MECHANICAL COLORING
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| Image from: Field, Louise
A. Peter Rabit and His Ma. (Chicago, IL : Saafield
Pulbishing, 1917)) |
To understand just how "immense" such an improvement
in producing children's books with color illustrations was
in the last quarter of the 19th century is only possible
by examining those decades in which the process actually
advanced.
In support of the need for preservation of color information
in addition to that conveyed through black and white surrogates,
Michael Patrick Hearn indirectly provided an additional
rational for such work. He noted that "the purpose
of an illustration is to be reproduced, not displayed, and
artists have employed certain short cuts that have not always
added to the life of the art. They often scrimped on material.
Papers discolor or disintegrate, colors fade, glues dry
out." It is likely that very few examples of the original
artwork for the color illustration of children's books during
the second half of the nineteenth century survive beyond
their published versions. Conservation surveys, completed
in the University of Florida's Baldwin
Library of Historical Children's Literature, found that
published material is now seriously in danger of self-destruction.
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| Images from: Little Sarah.
(Boston : W. J. Reynolds & Co., [1851?]) |
COLOR MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
While microfilm remains the only currently accepted medium
for preservation reprography, preservation microfilm is
an inadequate means of preserving color information. Because
a sizable percentage of children's literature contains color
in some format: illustration, frontispiece, title page information,
book cover(s), the Literature for Children's organizers
considered four color management strategies.
An optimal color management strategy must affordably preserve
color, with reasonable maintenance requirements, and provide
timely access to color content together with the monochromatic
information accompanying it.
MONOCHROME AND CONTINOUS TONE MICROPHOTOGRAPHY
This traditional method of preservation microfilming does
not provide a functional response to the needs addressed
above. Because monochrome and continuous tone microphotography
reduces all information to shades of gray, such an approach
implies an acceptance of color loss, and because there is
no capture of the color information contained in children's
books, it is an inadequate strategy for overall intellectual
color management.
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| Images from: The dogs'
grand dinner party. (New York : McLoughlin Brothers,
c1869.) |
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| Images from: Edgeworth,
Maria, 1767-1849. The bracelets, or, Amiability and
industry rewarded. (Philadelphia : Geo. S. Appleton,
1850.) |
THREE-COLOR PROCESS MICROPHOTOGRAPHY
The three-color process is a traditional, if rarely used,
method of monochrome microphotography that would produce
film that meets the requirements of preservation microfilming.
The process is the analog equivalent of separating a digital
image into component color channels. For any single source-document
page, three exposures are created. The first exposure is
made with standard white lighting, followed by reshoots
with, respectively, a yellow filter and a blue filter. Each
exposure is committed to preservation microfilm per RLG
preservation microfilming guidelines.
The split color components (red, green, & blue),
below, of the digital image are roughly comparable to
the color-filtered images of the Three-Color Process
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| Images from: The dogs'
grand dinner party. (New York : McLoughlin Brothers,
c1869.) |
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| Images from: Edgeworth,
Maria, 1767-1849. The bracelets, or, Amiability and
industry rewarded. (Philadelphia : Geo. S. Appleton,
1850.) |
Color is restored through an on-demand process of additional
color filtering and amalgamation of the filtered separations
into one color offprint. The multiple exposures would adversely
affect project cost; and color restoration, when necessary,
would be prohibitively expensive. Three-color process microphotography,
at best, is an oblique strategy for color management.
COLOR MICROPHOTOGRAPHY
Color microfilming would immediately and simply meet the
requirement for color image capture. Color microfilm, however,
does not meet the requirements for preservation microfilming
as recognized by RLG preservation microfilming guidelines.
Nonetheless, the Commission on Preservation and Access (CPA),
reviewing the findings of its commissioned
study of color microphotography, found Ilfochrome Classic
(formerly, Ilford's Cibachrome) microfilm to be an acceptable
method for preserving color illustration. Ilfochrome Classsics'
Azo dyes are legendary for their longevity (i.e., light
fastness) in dark, cold storage to AIIM standard (IT9.11).
But, the reasons for not electing color microphotography
as a color management strategy are several; each is a factor
of time and cost. CPA's report points to the difficulties
of Ilfochrome Classic in the production environment. "With
respect to sensitometry, Cibachrome film is slower and has
higher contrast making it somewhat more difficult to work
with," the report concludes. Instructions for the film's MRD
camera controller unit illustrate the detail of care
that must be taken. Exposure time is nominally 5% greater
than that required for standard monochrome microfilm. And,
the report continues, "local environmental laws may
make processing Cibachrome film difficult;" a reference
to the climate controls that must be taken both during exposure
and developing, as well as, in storage of the film.
The word "environmental" might be substituted
with the word, "economical". The cost of Ilfochrome
Classic compares negatively to that of a hybrid procedure
involving standard microfilming for preservation followed
by controlled digitization of color content. "Finally," the
report concludes, "in the case of service and use copies
of [Ilfochrome Classic] film, handling damage may nullify
any longevity benefit gained". In its more extensive
report, "Preserving
the Illustrated Text", also dated 1992, the authors
describe Ilfochrome Classic as an "intermediate technology".
Indeed, the report calls for use of "mixed" technologies
of standard microfilming for preservation and digitization
of images for color illustrations.
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| Images from: The dogs'
grand dinner party. (New York : McLoughlin Brothers,
c1869.) |
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| Images from: Edgeworth,
Maria, 1767-1849. The bracelets, or, Amiability and
industry rewarded. (Philadelphia : Geo. S. Appleton,
1850.) |
HYBRID MONOCHROME MICROPHOTOGRAPHY WITH COLOR DIGITIZATION
Color digitization converts color information to a digital
stream of zeros and ones; any given combination may represent
one of twenty-four million colors. Calibrated scans generate "true" colors.
And, assuming calibrated monitors, displayed color information
is as faithfully as it was when captured. Digital color
when optimally maintained and migrated, is stable within
active use, storage and across generations as it migrates
forward. And, color information can be made readily and
universally available via the Internet, in contrast to the
dull and limited capacity of the three color process.
But, like color microphotography, digitization is not
a recognized means of preservation. In a community traditionally
focused upon media life expectancy, digital media, hardware
and software each are relatively short-lived. Monitoring
industry trends and digital assets requires more attentiveness
if not more skill than maintaining a color film archive.
Standards and methods for digital image creation, archiving,
and migration are not fully agreed upon or well tested.
But, access to storage facilities and the availability of
experienced staff for the support of digital images, in
contrast to that for color film, is good. A hybrid method,
microfilming for preservation and digitizing for access,
efficiently designed, is optimal.
This project proposes to use the hybrid method; and the
particular method adopted by this project is exactly as
recommended by the Commission on Preservation and Access'
report on "Preserving
the Illustrated Text". Monochrome microphotography
is not truly a color management strategy. Both the three-color
process and color microphotography are neither sound or
fiscally justifiable strategies. To mitigate the extensive
storage requirements that would result from 24-bit scanning
of whole volumes with limited amounts of color, all volumes
initially will be preservation microfilmed. Subsequently,
the microfilm will be converted into digital surrogates
in 8-bit gray-scale. Pages with color information, scanned
from the source document by either flatbed scanner or digital
camera, will replace the page images from the converted
microfilms.
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| Images from: The dogs'
grand dinner party. (New York : McLoughlin Brothers,
c1869.) |
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| Images from: Edgeworth,
Maria, 1767-1849. The bracelets, or, Amiability and
industry rewarded. (Philadelphia : Geo. S. Appleton,
1850.) |
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