Saturday 25 May 2013

How A Microfiche Scanner Preserves Information

By Tisha Greer


Throughout the years, many different ways of collecting and storing information have been used. Sooner or later, though, most of these methods have become outdated, or at least not used as commonly as they once were. One such example is information stored on microfiche, which is frequently converted into a more convenient digital format by using a microfiche scanner.

Microfiche is a method that libraries and other document storehouses have used to preserve large or potentially fragile works. It involves shrinking down a copy of the page to a tiny fraction of its normal size and reproducing it on a single sheet along with many others like it. Although still functional, it is a bit archaic.

Despite the much smaller amount of space required by microfiche as opposed to full texts, storage is still necessary. Also, they usually cannot be read without the use of special equipment. This can often make it difficult and time-consuming to find exactly what you are looking for without being forced to sift through a lot of extraneous content.

Digital storage goes a long way toward solving many of these issues. Physical space is needed only in a very minimal capacity, meaning that accessing larger amounts of data from one location is much easier. Aside from a computer, which is more accessible to most people than a reader, no other special equipment is needed to access the documents once scanned.

The organization of the data that is converted is perhaps the largest advantage that digital formats have. Indexing and cataloging data is much easier, leading to greatly reduced search times with more detailed, specific results. Manually browsing through files is no longer a requirement, which saves many people a lot of time.

If there is a large backlog of content to convert, then the process can take a fairly large amount of time. However, it is generally a simple procedure, and the hardware available for the task has grown more advanced and less expensive. In fact, there is nearly always an overall cost reduction after a scanner is purchased, due to no longer needing to care for sometimes fragile and unreliable archival systems.

It is important to note that scanners cannot work miracles. They can only reproduce what already exists. If a piece of microfiche has been damaged or was simply not of very high quality to begin with, its scanned version will be the same. You will simply be gaining a copy that is as close to the original format as possible.

Nearly all of the media that we interact with on a daily basis is moving in a digital direction. In many cases, it is not only moving, but has actively settled into a comfortably digital future. Preserving important data and documents with a microfiche scanner is a smart way to make sure that this technology is being used to allow people access to records they might not otherwise have, or at least would not have without quite a lot of difficulty.




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