Picturae

Picturae operates as a specialized service provider focused on the mass digitization of cultural and natural history heritage collections. Founded in 1997 by Onno Zaman in Heerhugowaard, the Netherlands, the company has established itself as a key partner for archives, museums, libraries, and botanical gardens. A significant milestone occurred in 2023 when Picturae divested its IT division, which became Memorix Vitec, allowing Picturae to concentrate entirely on its core digitization services.

The company serves institutions by converting physical collections into digital assets, thereby preserving them and making them accessible for research and public engagement. The business model is project-based, offering end-to-end, customized digitization workflows. This process includes consultation, collection preparation, transportation, imaging, metadata transcription, and final delivery of digital files. Revenue is generated directly from these comprehensive digitization projects, which are tailored to the specific needs and materials of each client's collection. Picturae operates globally with offices and digitization studios in the Netherlands and the United States, and it can set up on-location anywhere in the world.

Picturae’s services cover a wide array of materials, including bound items like books and newspapers, unbound materials such as letters and maps, and transmissive formats like glass slides and film. A notable area of expertise is the digitization of natural history collections, for which the company developed a specialized conveyor belt system to rapidly image herbarium specimens. This system has been instrumental in making millions of specimens available online. The company differentiates itself by engineering its own proprietary equipment and software, which allows for a high degree of customization and quality control. This hands-on, inventive approach is central to its operations, ensuring that even the most fragile or unique items are handled and imaged safely and effectively.

Keywords: heritage digitization, cultural heritage, natural history collections, archive services, museum digitization, library services, collection management, mass digitization, digital preservation, metadata services, herbarium scanning, book scanning, photograph digitization, digital asset management, archival imaging, cultural preservation technology, digital archiving solutions, collection digitization, object scanning, manuscript digitization