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How It All Began: The Start of Anderson Archival

April 16, 2019/in Custom Software, Digital Collections, Document Scanning, Preservation /by Anderson Archival

Before Anderson Archival, there was Anderson Technologies. It might seem strange that an IT company would branch into digital archiving, but the story behind this expansion showcases what clients of both firms know about us: integrity, dedication, and client focus are core values at the heart of all we do. Our hallmarks include expertise and quality service because your satisfaction is how we define our success.

Anderson Archival came to fruition because we learned the hard way that sometimes to do a job right, you really must do it yourself.

The First Project

As Anderson Technologies, we provide far more than managed IT services support. When a client approached us years ago to digitize a large collection of documents for research purposes, we utilized our technical management capabilities to facilitate the project.

Identifying appropriate partners in the required disciplines to properly execute the project was harder than we anticipated. We eventually teamed with a local vendor to scan and restore the images and handle the optical character recognition (OCR) to convert pictures to text before we performed the document data tagging, software engineering, and quality assurance.

As the vendor delivered data to us, we identified numerous quality issues. They produced work that was not up to the high standards we needed for the collection. Missing pages, poor scan quality, and inaccurate conversion to digital text caused us to double check everything and send a great deal back to be redone. As the project continued, we realized we could have done things correctly the first time by bringing the tasks in-house.

The Problem

The experience taught us a great deal about digitization services, and we learned it takes more than technology to create a quality digital library. Anyone can get the best scanners or software on the market, but without dedicated employees, efficient systematization, the proper work environment, and an unflagging commitment to quality, the end result suffers.

For example, we later discovered the vendor only required a high school education for its staff. The goal of these workers, who were crammed together elbow-to-elbow in a conference room, wasn’t to produce the best product they could, but to push pages out the door as quickly as possible.

We also learned they didn’t have the necessary tools to facilitate the detailed quality control needed for the images. Though their scanners and software were excellent, their monitors were too small to display the entire page without being zoomed out so far that the image became useless for a quality check.

By the time the project was complete, we learned many lessons on how not to digitize historical documents for quality search results. When another client approached us with a project to digitize historical documents, we knew using traditional scanning vendors would produce inaccurate results. This time, we were going to do it ourselves and do it right.

More Than Just Scans

There is far more to digitizing a precious collection than simply scanning the pages. Our clients want extremely accurate search results, which means the images must be converted to text via OCR and labels (or tags) need to be inserted to guide the search engine to produce relevant feedback. This requires not only the correct software, but a great deal of time and attention to detail by those transforming the data. It is important to select a firm who will treat your collection with the same focus and enthusiasm you do. Working with a third party who doesn’t cherish the opportunity to preserve your documents causes the end result to suffer dramatically.

Keep an eye on our blog to see how we applied these lessons and expanded into the business of historical document digitization. If you want to turn your collection into a quality digital library with the most accurate search results, contact Anderson Archival today at info@andersonarchival.com or by phone at 314.529.1900.

More Than Bitcoin: Taking Blockchain Technology to Preservation

March 26, 2019/in Backup and Storage, Digital Collections, Preservation /by Anderson Archival

What do Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have to do with archiving? The technology cryptocurrencies are built on – the blockchain – is drawing attention from those who seek to innovate within all industries, including archival.

This is especially relevant for the future of the archival community, as blockchain holds a potential solution to problems of impermanence and authorship. Many institutions, such as the UK government’s National Archives and Civil newsrooms, are considering and advocating the merits of blockchain-based repositories. While these proposed repositories do not yet exist, in theory they could ensure continued, unalterable preservation through embedding full text or original image scans into the fabric of the blockchain.

As purveyors of archival collections know, there are potential problems that can plague digital and physical archives. Blockchain technology provides a theoretical answer for two of those problems: integrity of authorship and permanence.

What is the Blockchain?

The simplest explanation is that blockchain allows for the average person to trust the authenticity of the digital world.

The blockchain is a collection of transactions. “Each new block references every block before it—so changing one block corrupts the whole chain,” says Blockchain for Grandma. Powerful computers perform randomized math to build the blockchain, and each block in the chain is permanent, immutable, and static.

In the case of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency on the blockchain, a transfer means another entry on the chain, which keeps a record of its creation and every transfer in its history. The massive network maintains its own integrity, confirming and double-checking every creation, or transfer.

A short blockchain explanation from Real Vision. “Each new block that is written contains something called a cryptographic hash, a small mathematical fingerprint of the blocks that came before it in the chain, making it extremely difficult to tamper with the data that resides inside the blocks.”

Blockchain embeds authentication into the document itself, and protects against tampering and modification. In essence, this works similarly to file-sharing services like DropBox or OneDrive, where local copies synchronize changes across all those with access.

Permanent digital records offer an enticing solution, especially in a world where records may easily be accidentally or maliciously deleted.

Integrity and Permanence Built into the Blockchain

Consider this scenario: A student writing a paper on Chaucer cites what is stated to be the original text reprinted in a textbook. Another student is able to present another instance of the so-called original text in an anthology, but that excerpt has changes. Obsessing over the disparity, the students track down other versions of that same “original text” to compare them. They discover that in one early printing, a comma was added and the spelling of a word modernized. Some textbooks reprinted the text prior to this printing, and some used the modern printing – all claiming to contain the original text.

Had this scenario unfolded on the blockchain, clear record would exist of the creation, editions inserting changes, and where copies originated. However, in the physical world, it is often unclear just where words have come from.

According to the Chicago Manual of Style, when conducting research, multiple sources should be used to confirm facts. Whenever possible, it recommends going back to the original source. How do you know you have an original? Aside from consulting an expert, signals of authenticity in the real world include watermarks, signatures, and embossed seals. This recommendation is intended to circumvent the type of error-introduction shown above. But when this vigorous research is not conducted, how much print and research is then tainted by incorrect publication of facts or text?

When a digital library offers original pages with searchable text, the integrity of that text is placed implicitly in the hands of the archivist.

Many times, historical documents only exist physically as single-copies that are inaccessible to researchers. Digital scans can easily introduce errors or inaccurate information if an archivist’s agenda strays from true preservation. Ultimately, there is very little beyond trust that guarantees a digital library is a valid source, displaying the original.

But when dealing with important topics, trust and integrity might not feel like enough. Blockchain-like records or blockchain itself could provide a solution.

Case Studies

Until now, blockchain has only been practical for ultra-simple archiving processes, such as embedding text into a cryptocurrency transaction. The technology and means for widespread use in digital archives simply doesn’t exist. However, that may soon change.

ARCHANGEL

In a strictly archival sense, the UK National Archives is testing how blockchain might create a way to verify the accuracy of archived documents through a project called ARCHANGEL. The project is intended to directly combat the problem of digital storage becoming obsolete and inaccessible, and is currently in development stages.

Civil

Focusing more on the journalistic side, Civil newsrooms propose utilizing blockchain technology in two ways. The first ensures that published content in approved newsrooms is permanent and maintains a permanent link to authors and facts. The second uses CVL token transactions, owned and transferred by members of the Civil community, to indicate which newsrooms are trustworthy and eligible to remain on the Civil platform. The biggest barrier to entry with Civil and CVL is the learning curve. If the public doesn’t understand the process of utilizing blockchain in journalism and digital archives, the worth of that technology drops, and a failed first launch attempt has proven that.

Because blockchain has such a steep barrier to understanding and entry, it isn’t likely to take the world by storm any time soon. And because one of the purposes of creating digital archives is access, blockchain isn’t a feasible solution yet.

While blockchain may be the solution for the future, Anderson Archival understands and provides the current methods and standards of preservation. However, we do explore myriad methods of keeping data and originals safe from deterioration. If you’d like to explore the options that future technology could hold for the integrity and preservation of your collection, contact us today at 314.259.1900 or info@andersonarchival.com!

http://dasch.rc.fas.harvard.edu/gallery/b41215.jpg

Quotables: Digitizing the Stars: Harvard University’s Glass Plate Collection

March 7, 2019/in Digital Collections, Digital Restoration, General, Quotables /by Anderson Archival

Check out Anderson Archival’s recent contribution to bloggERS! The Blog of SAA’s Electronic Records Section. Digital Archivist Shana Scott presents a case study from Harvard University’s preservation of night sky photographs.

Scott tells the story of astronomer Dr. Henry Draper, his wife Anna, and the women of Harvard’s Observatory who were dedicated to the preservation of this incomparable collection.

Read the full article on bloggERS! now.

Do you have a historical document collection that you’d like to make more accessible, relevant, and impactful? Anderson Archival uses proprietary methods to digitize collections so they are easily searchable, ultimately accessible, and even more meaningful to as wide an audience as possible. Let us help you today! Give us a call at 314.259.1900 or email us at info@andersonarchival.com.

What are Quotables? This is a category in our posts to highlight any professional publications that benefit from our expert archivist experience and quote us in articles for their readers.

have you found a treasure? here are the next steps for preservation

Treasure or Trash?

February 19, 2019/in Digital Collections, Document Scanning, Preservation /by Anderson Archival

Those of us who’ve seen Antiques Roadshow a few times have probably reflected on the once-thought-worthless item that ends up being worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. How can someone not know what they have is priceless? And on the other hand, how can that dusty old artifact be worth anything? Sometimes those antiques (and national treasures) have been found in the most bizarre places such as Goodwill and attics of old homes.

Time seems to have a curious effect on historical items. It seems that, as times change, different value is placed on seemingly valueless antiques. For instance, a family had a 1820s copy of The Declaration of Independence, and originally had it framed and displayed in their home. However, as the years went by, it was eventually considered worthless and stored, in its broken frame, in a closet. In 2014, it was found by a relative who realized its significance.

This story could happen to anyone. Some of these items end up being national treasures, and others irreplaceable family history. So, here are a few ways to determine whether your old junk is worth preserving.

Research

You can do some simple research on your own to determine whether your object is worth paying an appraisal fee. The Smithsonian says that university or area libraries, state and local historical societies or museums, and state extension services should be able to help you. If you are dealing with a document of questionable origin, see if you can find this document at any or all of these local historical libraries. Likely as not, there will be copies out there, unless it is a private letter. If it looks like the document came from the era it says it does, and you have reason to believe it’s authentic, take it in for an appraisal.

Appraisal

If you want to skip doing your own research or your document seems like it could be a true historical document, you should get it appraised as quickly as possible for insurance reasons. An appraisal should tell you not only what the document might be worth, but also information about its age, condition, and historical significance. Finding out the history of your document might be difficult to do on your own, but appraisers will be able to put you on the right track for further research.

Restoration, Preservation, or Marketing

What next? You need to decide what you want to do with your discovery. Are you going to keep it or sell it? Is the document in good shape or is it crumbling and quickly becoming illegible? Restoration services are available, but no matter what you do, we recommend getting it digitally preserved as well.

If you’re wanting to sell your document, your appraiser should be able to help you find a good outlet, whether a library, museum, or private buyer. They should also be able to recommend you to a reputable company that can restore your document if you desire.

If you want to keep your document, whether it needs restoration or not, digital preservation is essential. The government suggests specific guidelines for digitizing documents on their FADGI (Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative) website. If these seem daunting to you, consider outsourcing for quality digitization services.

Digital Preservation

Digital preservation is important for a number of reasons. For instance, if a disaster befalls the original, that’s not the end of its story. You might lose the original historical piece, but at least you’ll have a backup saved for posterity to read and study. Aside from preserving your document in case of a disaster, digital preservation can make your research much more accurate and less time consuming if metadata is infused into the digital copies.

Your archivists can optically recognize (OCR) your document, making it readable to the computer so you can search it for keywords using database software like Adobe Reader. If metadata is added, you’ll be able to organize your documents in a digital library. What’s more, you will be able to share your document with others electronically and use technology to zoom in on the document while you study it without risking its damage.

Anderson Archival takes document preservation seriously. Our team of dedicated archivists are trained in the latest technology to preserve your documents digitally. So next time you shop at Goodwill and realize you’re looking at a 244-year-old-newspaper, you’ll know just what to do with it!

Are you ready to preserve your historical documents? Call Anderson Archival at 314.259.1900 or email us at info@andersonarchival.com, and a member of our team will be happy to answer your questions.

Search Results: 0 – The Unseen Cost of Inaccurate Data and Sub-Par Solutions

November 8, 2018/in Digital Collections, News, Preservation /by Anderson Archival

Anderson Archival is pleased to have presented at Digital Preservation 2018 (#digipres18) in Las Vegas in October! The conference, with a theme on the future of digital preservation was hosted by the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) and the Digital Library Foundation (DLF).

At the conference we highlighted what archivists should consider when creating or updating a digital collection, when not to choose economy over quality, and the various ways in which a digital collection can fail to be a useful research tool as a result of substandard work.

We embraced attendance at Digital Preservation 2018 as an opportunity to take part in the national discussion of preservation quality and access, and we would like to share with you what we presented at the conference.

Minute Madness

Anderson Archival shared a short one-minute presentation on the hidden cost of incorrect data.

Our Minute Madness presentation, “Search Results: 0 – The Unseen Cost of Inaccurate Data and Sub-Par Solutions” illustrated our experience in providing preservation solutions for a client who had previously invested in what they ultimately realized were poor solutions that offered only inaccurate, incomplete data.

For a collection that is used for scholarly research within their organization, this was a problem.

This group considered their collection preserved, but after a careful audit of their digital materials, we discovered that not only were chunks of original information missing entirely, the scans that were complete provided such messy OCR that search results woefully underrepresented the actual contents of the collection.

Search Results

What was the true cost of using this cheaper digitization solution for ten years? It’s impossible to calculate! Imagine the hours lost to inefficient search, and the research and publications that are now known to have drawn from fragmented data.

For instance, see what happens if OCR software reads this famous quote from Winston Churchill:

If the OCR mistakes the g and h and it goes unchecked, we end up with this in the collection:

If you searched for the famous portion of this Churchill quote “go to hell,” this document would never show up in your search results. Now imagine this hundreds of times over throughout your collection – many collections being tens of thousands of pages, or larger.

Inaccurate OCR data provides limited search results, and the lack of good search technology will give you an infinite number of useless results. These are both complicated by poor metadata tagging.

So what happens when a digital collection is preserved with inaccurate data and sub-par solutions? The voices of history don’t resonate when users access a poor software solution with inaccurate search results, and your collection won’t be used to its greatest potential.

The methodology you employ can mitigate these problems.

For the most accurate data, establishing a multi-step system for scanning, image cleanup, OCR and quality assurance is critical.

You also need detailed tagging to support your data architecture and the right search technology tuned to your data set.

The Executive Director for the project mentioned above was horrified to learn that nearly a decade of their research was not complete.

How do you feel about your collection? Is quality important to you?

With a digitization provider like Anderson Archival, every step of the archival process is performed and checked by members of our expert team.

It’s time to gain confidence in your data and your search results! Check out our poster from Digital Preservation 2018 and call us today at 314.259.1900.

5 Crucial Reasons to Digitize Your Historical Documents (and 5 Reasons You’ll Never Regret It)

June 28, 2018/in Digital Collections, General, Preservation /by Anderson Archival

Imagine you are a retired scientist who lives down the street from a library that houses valued historical documents. You’ve always had a fascination with maps of streams, lakes, and tides, and the ecology around them, and since your retirement, you enjoy more time sifting through the historical research and analytics.

One day, you see a dumpster outside, cardboard boxes littering the walkway in front of the building. Pedestrians are riffling and collecting items from them. But you don’t think anything of it because all libraries renovate, don’t they?

And then, not long after, the library is closed.

This is what happened to Canada’s Libraries of Fisheries and Oceans. When? Not 100 years ago and not 50. Between 2012 and 2015, the government cut funding from these libraries, causing 7 out of 11 to close and recklessly disperse their documents. Scientists refer to this incident as a modern-day Library of Alexandria because so much knowledge, information, and research was lost.

The Tyee journalist Andrew Nikiforuk says, “Established in 1973, when foreign governments hailed Canada as a world leader in freshwater science and protection, the library housed tens of thousands of reports, maps, charts and books, including material dating back to the 1880s.” A treasury of information!

So what happened to those historical documents?

While many books and papers were relocated to a federal library in British Columbia, Gloria Galloway of The Globe and Mail says that books and research documents were given away, sold, or discarded into dumpsters. The only documents kept were “remains pertinent to the department’s mandate.” Much of the literature was not widely published material nor was all of it digitized. Some of it was, but the government refuses to answer how much.

In fact, CBC’s Max Paris says, “Critics said it was to get rid of environmental elements of the act that hindered the government’s plans for resource development and export.” Some allege that the retention of select data alludes to a political agenda that might otherwise be hindered by complete and long-documented research.

What was lost? The science behind water conservation is incredibly important because of how it affects habitats all over the globe. Canada contains 20% of the world’s freshwater, and research pertinent to the conservation around freshwater and saltwater and whole-lake experiments is now lost. This endangers not only Canada’s natural resources, but the world’s since the research was used to conserve and safely maintain global water sources.

The Time to Digitize Is Now

There is no “safe place” for indefinitely preserving historical documents from decay or other damage. However, you can make sure information kept in those documents will remain available for generations to come by digitizing them.

Consider these five crucial reasons to digitize your historical documents now:

You never know when tragedy may strike in the form of a natural disaster. Files, folders, and cardboard boxes stacked in the attic or shelves in a warehouse is not safe storage. Even a historical library or society is at risk. Floods, fires, or vandalism can happen at any moment.
Human negligence happens. Insurance will compensate you, but it cannot recover lost or accidentally destroyed artifacts.
How many times have governments destroyed books to further their agendas, instill fear in citizens, gain control of education or other jurisdictional departments, or rewrite history? It can even be as mundane as lack of funding. The Libraries of Fisheries and Oceans is not the only modern book burning. History shows that it regularly happens on almost every continent, in almost every country around the world.
Once lost, those historical items are gone forever. In many cases, there are no replacements or backups. Who could replace the journal of George Washington if it was lost? Future generations would never have this personal insight into our first president. How can we learn from history if it isn’t preserved for our knowledge?
Most importantly, information lost can have a major impact on life today. For instance, Nikiforuk says, “The ELA [Experimental Lakes Area] cost $2 million a year to maintain, but its research saved governments around the world billions of dollars by preventing water contamination.”

Don’t let such a tragedy befall your collection. Digitize your historical documents today or make a case for your local historical society, library, or historical research facility. Digitizing historical documents properly can be time consuming, but it is well worth the investment.

The Benefits of Carefully Digitizing Historical Documents

If you are passionate about history and preserving knowledge and historical documents, digitization can keep them accessible for the foreseeable future. Here are five reasons why you won’t regret digitizing your historical documents.

Multiple Backups. Digitized documents can never be lost if correctly mirrored onto physical hardware and cloud storage. Making multiple backups means that you can store them in different places, and cloud services allow you to access the documents from anywhere.
Organization. Now you have a way to systematically organize files with search tags, creating a logical and efficient way to quickly research and locate the most relevant information.
Search Capabilities. Do you have older typeset documents created before the advent of Microsoft Word? Your documents can be optically recognized through optical character recognition (OCR). While many vendors provide OCR services, very few strive for accuracy like the experts at Anderson Archival. Our OCR verification process ensures the finest accuracy for search. Instead of sifting through boxes and file cabinets, you’ll be able to simply enter your keywords into the search box, and let the computer do the work for you!
Ability to Share. Not only will you be able to access the documents in an organized fashion with search features, but you can also offer a publicly accessible online reference database on your own website. If you want a more private approach, your database can be shared only with individuals behind a password-protected account management system or locally stored on your organization’s network.
Peace of Mind. Is there any greater benefit than peace of mind? You will know that your historical documents, whether research materials, letters, or other historical data, are safe from whatever the world may throw at them.

If you are ready for your library to be digitized and saved for posterity, contact Anderson Archival today at 314.259.1900 or info@andersonarchival.com!

Is Social Media the Best Way to Share Your Digital Library?

May 24, 2018/in Digital Collections, General, Preservation, Special Projects /by Anderson Archival

Even on the most social, shallow corners of the internet, it is becoming hard to miss the world of museums and archives. For advocates of sharing and learning from history, that’s excellent news.

When building or preserving a collection, a common pressing question is “How do I get this important document in front of those who don’t even know it exists?”

The largely on-demand nature of the internet means that knowledge and familiarity have to, in some way, precede a search. But when your collection lives outside the realm of the typically encountered, searches can be rare.

Social media circumvents this. While gathering content and followers can be a slow process, a digital library shared on Twitter or Instagram can go from obscure to viral in the blink of an eye. Many museums have already captured this momentum. Successful accounts like New York Times Archives and The Met Museum set the bar high, but so-called smaller collections can find a niche audience in this medium as well.

With these successes, it becomes easier to understand why some museums and collection curators build their sharing strategy around social media.

Does this tactic encourage viewers to treat their experience superficially, as Philip Kennicott argues in a review, or does it fill a desire on participants’ parts to be entertained and to interact? If “the only reason people know about it is because of Instagram,” , isn’t that, on the simplest level, more eyes on the art?

Ultimately, there is no denying that social media boosts awareness. Whether it changes the viewing and learning experiences is still to be discovered.

Why would a curator or director refuse to embrace and utilize social media in sharing their collection?

The Topic Is Too Niche

The internet is an ideal environment and means of finding researchers and appreciators of that very niche. Take, for example, this account about the former St. Louis football team, the Cardinals. While the Cardinals are a ubiquitous name for St. Louis baseball, the historical football team is far less known, and yet this Twitter account showcasing historical Cardinals football items has found a large following.

The Topic Isn’t Interesting

Wait. You’ve spent years and money preserving a collection that isn’t interesting? Doubtful! There may be dense text included in a collection, but interest is in the eye of the beholder – and there are ways to showcase even the most seemingly inaccessible collection .

A Social Media Account Is Just More Work. Who Is to Say There Will Even Be a Return on This Effort?

If reaching the technologically savvy and younger generations is a priority for you and your collection, social media isn’t something you can afford to ignore. There are alternative solutions for organizations with tighter budgets or time constraints. The Library of Congress archive blog has a technical how-to for creating a bot that randomly shares images from an archive.

One of the many benefits of technology is the way that it constantly makes itself easier to use, so the possibilities for bots and programs managing social media accounts can only grow. Right now, bots may not generate the same level of excitement as a curated account, but they are better than nothing!

My Collection Isn’t Digitized

It would be difficult to share on a digital medium that which is not digital. A collection kept on paper, in boxes, is not only limited in the means of gaining an audience, being available for research, and enriching the lives of strangers, but it is also at risk of loss. Anderson Archival is ready to build a digital library from your materials and ensure the safety of your collection with secure digital backups.

An audience for your collection is out there, and social media can help you find it. Creating a digital library is half the battle, but don’t let that library go unused!

Are you ready to start a social media account for your digital collection?

Three Ways to Make the Most of Your Digital Collection’s Social Media Account

Tie history to today. Use hashtags like #OnThisDay to showcase artifacts published “on this day in history,” or take a page from the marketer’s playbook and tie posts to trending topics. These may not be successful individual posts, but inclusion in hashtags may gain followers who were previously unaware of your collection.Is a piece of your collection relevant to breaking news? Share it, but be sure to make the context clear.
Utilize trending topics within the archival community like #ArchivesHashtagParty, usually hosted by the twitter account. Members of the archival community and interested bystanders watch these topics. There are few other ways to put your collection in view of so many eyes!In addition to using hashtags, use social media to foster relationships within the archival community. Interactions between museums and collections can go viral, but even more beneficially, can mean shared audiences and resources.
Create something worth sharing. Rather than pinpointing what this means for your particular collection, it is easier to identify a social media post that isn’t worth sharing. Search “history twitter” or “museum instagram” and examine the results. Does the account post interesting information and not just a link? Are the images compelling? Many accounts make the mistake of linking to the museum or collection website without giving a reason they wanted to share the post.There is something that just works about the digital library social media accounts for the Missouri History Museum and the St. Louis Art Museum.

What you do with your collection and how you share it is up to you. Anderson Archival is here to show you the possibilities and help make them happen. Is it important that your collection is preserved as a digital library, kept safe from loss, and available for future generations? Anderson Archival specializes in digital preservation and secure backup. Contact us today at info@andersonarchival.com to talk about your collection or sharing it with social media.

Digitization Services: A Vital Part of Your Disaster Recovery Plan

March 23, 2018/in Digital Collections, Disaster Recovery, General, Preservation /by Anderson Archival

Digitizing services are vital for a disaster recovery plan to electronically restore your collection when destruction hits. Maybe you already have a disaster recovery plan for the computer equipment you use in your home and office everyday (if not, get a free consultation with Anderson Technologies), but what about the priceless materials in your collection?

Whether you curate a museum with a significant compendium or want to make the athletic legacy of a school available online, consider data digitizing to sustain your treasures for when the unexpected happens.

Take, for instance, the 1966 flood of the Arno River in Florence, Italy. Over one million books and works of art were left waterlogged or worse, some still being restored as recently as 2013. The heart of the Renaissance was destroyed in less than a day.

Your organization’s collection is irreplaceable. But by establishing electronic archiving as a part of a disaster recovery plan, you can digitally preserve your materials forever—rain or snow, fire or flood. Data digitizing and electronic archiving create a safety net that protects your collection from disaster.

But It Could Never Happen to Me!

Yes it could, faster than you might imagine.

In 2009, a plane crash in the suburbs of Newark, NJ, took 50 lives and demolished a private collection of baseball cards worth $2.4 million. Insurance and diligent record-keeping of items in the collection provided the victim’s family financial compensation for the lost memorabilia. But because of the resulting fire, those items are permanently gone and will never be enjoyed again.

Fires, floods, earthquakes, sinkholes, avalanches, acts of war, and theft, are threats to a collection. While these tragedies aren’t preventable, complete loss of your irreplaceable materials is!

How Do I Protect My Collection from Catastrophe?

Digitization services use advanced document processing and electronic archiving techniques to create a digital article that can’t be touched by physical disasters. This data can be accessed through searchable online databases or simply kept in an external storage device.

Various data backup methods are available when considering digitizing services. Each individual client has differing needs, but Anderson Archival recommends using a combination of these three methods:

Onsite: This type of backup provides the fastest recovery in the event of data loss. A potential quick reinstallation is well worth the cost of backup software or physical media (host computer, external hard drives, or other electronic storage devices).
Offsite: This method is similar to physical or electronic onsite backups, but the device or software is kept safe at a remote location. Note the limitations of this type of backup: removable media can be lost or damaged, and it may take some time to move data from one location to another.

Of course, the collection itself can always be kept in a safe place. But fires and floods can happen in a warehouse just as easily as they can in your home or office. If the original collection’s site were affected by calamity, it would be wise to have a digital copy in another secure location.

Cloud-based: This type of backup can be accessed anywhere with an internet connection. Depending on how large your collection is and the kind of protection you need, this method can get expensive but as long as you have access to the internet, you can recover your entire collection in the event of a disaster.

One bright side of the 1966 flood of the Arno is that the art curators and librarians of Florence put their heads together to find the best ways to restore anything that wasn’t completely lost in the disaster. New historical preservation techniques they learned are still being used today. Even though external hard drives or cloud storage didn’t exist at the time of the worst natural disaster to ever hit Florence, they were able to salvage some of their heritage and put that caution into creating disaster recovery plans for the future.

Thankfully, we live in an age of digitizing services like those offered by Anderson Archival. For document processing and digitization services that focus on your passion for your collection, call us at 314.259.1900 or email us at info@andersonarchival.com.

Creating a Digital Library

February 2, 2018/in Custom Software, Digital Collections, General, Preservation /by Anderson Archival

Need to Convert Out-of-Date Historical Scans? Outsource OCR Services!

January 28, 2018/in Digital Collections, Document Scanning, General, Preservation /by Anderson Archival

Historical digitization services have been a part of preservation plans for decades, but the technology has improved dramatically. With optical character recognition (OCR), which creates the ability to search through the text of any scanned image, your collection has the potential to become a functional research tool for anyone viewing your digital library.

Converting historical scans can be a complicated process. The Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative 2016 (FADGI) notes that “without staff with a good technical foundation, achieving the appropriate level of quality . . . is problematic. Cultural heritage digitization is a specialization within the imaging field that requires specific skills and experience.” Depending on the condition of your digital collection, it may be more cost effective to outsource OCR services than handle it in-house.

Bringing Out the Text from Scanned Images

Before starting any digitization plan, it is vital to know the quality of the images. Older image files, or those created without quality equipment, may no longer be suitable for preserving a collection into the future. The FADGI offers specific quality guidelines for digital scans to be considered suitable for OCR or other information processing techniques.

Many early scanning efforts may not offer the resolution or clear detail needed for OCR software to read text. In this case, any attempt to use image-to-text converting services requires new scans with updated equipment. That can get expensive if your organization doesn’t already have scanners or digital cameras capable of creating images of sufficient quality or the manpower to perform the scans. Your organization may find it more economical to hire a company that offers both scanning and image-to-text converting services to avoid buying expensive equipment.

Why Should You Outsource OCR Services?

If your scans are suitable quality to proceed without problems or need only minimal adjustments, then you can immediately begin converting your historical scans to readable text. OCR software is available for purchase, and a single employee can digitize your collection, but before you send them off for days of converting, consider this warning from the FADGI: “avoid the trap of assuming doing the work in-house will cost less. Insourcing may cost more than outsourcing.”

Even if you don’t need to purchase new scanners or digital cameras for your digitization project, it can still be beneficial to outsource OCR services. For all that OCR software is capable of, it still reads text like a computer, and that can mean countless errors in the conversion process. If your project requires a decently accurate rendering of the text, an employee must verify potential errors the software flags. If your project requires a high level of accuracy, another pass may be needed to review the text against the scanned image manually, word-for-word. All of this increases the amount of time you must devote employee resources to the project.

Anderson Archival’s historical digitization services provide you with staff already proficient with this process. Our employees can perform the same tasks with better resources and less downtime learning new software or what errors to watch for. This can ultimately save your organization money and resources in the long run.

If you are ready to outsource OCR services or want to learn more about image-to-text converting services, contact Anderson Archival by email at info@andersonarchival.com or by phone at 314.259.1900.

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