In his 16 years with Veridian (16!) Richard has developed and project managed numerous large scale digitization projects.
He holds the secrets to a well crafted digital collection. From system design and data conversion to digital image repositories and custom user interfaces, Richard is your man.
(Actually, he’s our man but you’re welcome to borrow him).
Tell us about one of your favourite digital collection projects
I've been privileged to work on a lot of interesting projects so this is like picking your own favourite child, each one is uniquely compelling.
The Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection would be a recent favourite. It's a fully featured digital collection with text correction, and I particularly like the topics section which really helps bring the content to life.
Where's your favourite place in the world?
The countryside of Tuscany in autumn on a motorcycle is pretty special.
A clear sunny day on the Amalfi coast, exploring villages perched half way up sheer cliffs next to the beautiful Mediterranean would also make the list.
But my favourite place is a mysterious part of New Zealand, which is of course (as the Lord of the Rings films demonstrated) the most beautiful place in the world.
What’s kept you at Veridian for all this time?
There are many reasons. I find the historical part of historical preservation fascinating, and it’s satisfying to be a part of bringing a digital collection to life.
We have a team of interesting, sparkling personalities here, and Stefan is a fantastic leader, creating a relaxed, open, unassuming atmosphere.
As a student of software engineering, I enjoy creating software that is useful, usable, robust and "just works". The last thing the world needs is more broken, inefficient technology that frustrates us and wastes precious time.
At Veridian we have the freedom to do things the right way, not the fastest or easiest way. We seek out the tidiest, most elegant solutions. Because we’re not a large corporate we’re able be agile and responsive to our customers. We try to go above and beyond to make them happy.
It’s also great to be part of a team where projects get delivered on time and to budget. For some reason this seems to be rare in the IT industry!
What’s the next big exciting thing in digital collections?
We constantly have a lot of things cooking in our digital collection kitchen. Veridian, our hosting platform and our services are continuously being improved in response to the evolving needs of the digital collection industry.
Some things I'm unable to talk about just yet, but recently we’ve added IIIF support to a collection we built with the Swiss National Library. This is just the beginning of Veridian IIIF support however, and we're encouraging more Veridian collections to join the IIIF ecosystem.
If you could have any one superpower, which would you choose?
Flight, teleportation, to be able to clap with one hand, and to be able to choose four superpowers.
I can’t live without…
Chocolate or New Zealand ice cream, preferably together, for breakfast.