subject: Microfiche Scanning Services - Selection and Benefits [print this page] Microfiche Scanning Services - Selection and Benefits
Microfiche scanning allows you to convert your existing legacy documents that have been archived on microfiche into digital images. There are many benefits of scanning microfiche such as:
Documents can be made accessible throughout your network and at remote locations
Retrieval time is greatly reduced
Digital images do not degrade with use like microfiche
Digital images mitigate the risk of loss of physical images
Information can be linked with other applications (ECM, HRIS, CRM, EMR, etc)
There are many factors to consider when planning microfiche scanning. The first is should you purchase equipment and do it yourself, or should you outsource it? In most cases outsourcing microfiche scanning make more sense for a variety of reasons, including these:
Quality microfiche scanners cost $50,000 or more, sooutsourcing saves money
Learning curves on the equipment and software is steep
Microfiche scanning is very time consuming, outsourcing will complete your project sooner since your vendor should have many scanners and run multiple shifts.
Professional microfiche scanning service companies have advancedQuality Assurance processes
Professional microfiche scanning service companies offer data entry and indexing and can help you load the data into your software systems.
Once you have decided to outsource your microfiche scanning you should consider a company's experience in microfiche scanning, as well asthe capacity they offer to do your project quickly. You will also have to decide if you want bi-tonal images or grayscale images scanned from the microfiche. If your software allows it, grayscale images are often the best choice for older or poorly filmedmicrofiche, where the image quality is not so good.
In addition to the scanning of themicrofiche, you will also need some level of indexing in order to retrieve the images. This is usually as simple as capturing information fromthe fiche header or off the images on the fiche such as name, account numbers, etc.microfiche scanning services.
Sometimes Microfilm is blipped at multiple levels, such as Folder, Document and Page. You Microfilm scanning vendor should be able to detect these blips which partially automates the indexing process and reduces the cost of indexing.
