[WEB4LIB] Converting Microfiche and Hardcopy to electronic form

[Jim Harold]

Good Morning ....

We have a collection of over 100,000 documents now.  We were having mfiche produced but now have switched to either scanning or the loading of the electronic version in PDF into our database system when it is available (we convert all formats word processing formats to PDF first).  The scanning of paper documents is handled by a vendor.  Conversion to PDF we handle ourselves.

For the separate operation of the agency's record management, we only scan the docs and we do this in house. (Why we do one operation in house and outsource the other is beyond me.)

Due to cost limitations, we only converted selected documents to multi-page TIFF images.  This was easy for us to determine since we keep records as to which docs where ordered the most.

I agree with Gary Masters that quality control is critical.  With our in house operations (records management), we review the entire document once it is scanned.  For the outsourced scans, we review selectively once the images are received back from the vendor.

If you have only one collection to go with, I would recommend trying to locate a vendor.  Setting up a system to do this is not worth the bother especially if someone already has this in place.

With regard to sharing over your intranet, we have done some research in this regard but have not put anything in place yet.  We purchased scripts from SkyLine Tools (Doc-to-Net) which takes multi-page TIFF images and converts them to GIF for display to a web page.  With the addition of some JavaScript by us, we had a test page up and running but it doesn't seem available right now (will post a message when I can get it corrected).  View info at:

     http://www.skylinetools.com

Hope this has been of help.

Jim Harold
USAID Development Experience Clearinghouse

>>> "M.A.Khan" <makhan at css.cmmacs.ernet.in> 06/14/99 05:22AM >>>
We have a good collection of reports in the area of aerospace and
allied sciences in the form of Microfiche and hardcopy.  We would
like to convert them into electronic form and made is accessible 
through intranet to our end users.

I would like to know if any library has taken up this type of work
of converting both microfiche and hardcopy into electronic form.  If so,
please let me know the methodology and the infrastructure require for
the conversion. 

Mumtaz Ahmed Khan
Scientist
Information Centre for Aerospace Science and Technology
National Aerospace Laboratories
Airport Road
Bangalore - 560 017

Phone : 080-5086082