The Digitisation of the Frank Scholten Collection at the Special Collections of Leiden University Libraries

Frank Scholten, a Dutch photographer with a deep interest in biblical landscapes, documented life in Palestine between 1921 and 1923. His photographs captured biblical sites, local crafts, landscapes, and a range of religious and cultural ceremonies. Following his death in 1942, his extensive collection—comprising approximately 14,000 negatives and 13,000 photographic prints—remained largely unorganised and inaccessible to the public. To facilitate public access, Leiden University Libraries undertook a project that combined artificial intelligence (AI) with manual labour. Employing image recognition technologies, the team matched negatives with corresponding prints, thereby streamlining the cataloguing process. To further enrich the metadata, volunteers from diverse backgrounds—including individuals with personal or cultural connections to Palestine—participated in workshops where they helped to catalogue, repackage, and label the prints. The collection has since been digitised, and in 2023–2024 it gathered interest considerable international interest, particularly from Israel, the United States, the Netherlands, and Jordan. Although the collection has basic metadata, efforts are underway to enhance its discoverability through the application of AI tools. Given the sensitive nature of the material, these tools are currently being tested in a restricted environment.