Dear friends,
There are currently a lot of questions being asked about mass digitisation workflow. Most of them refer to the technical side of things – hardware, software, input, output and so on.
Here’s a piece of advice gleaned from 10 projects with more than 1 million digitised items:
The no. 1 subject matter is logistics. Get a grip on it, or you will lose control of the critical issues.
In other words: you need to know – at all times – exactly where every physical item is and what processing step it’s currently in. If you do not have this information, you will not be able to react swiftly in any given situation, much less manage a full-blown crisis. So make sure your technology is able to display the status quo of the entire project as well as the single item – otherwise you will lose a lot of time and hence money, and maybe even your job.
What else to keep an eye out for?
Take care to establish that your material can actually be scanned (it might be too large/small/fragile/old&valuable/weak print etc.). Then be sure the items you want to digitise are compatible with your soft- and hardware.
Yes you can digitise books with a book scanner, but can you also scan the book’s oversized foldouts? If not, how and when will you be able complete your digital collection – and at what additional cost? Also please take into consideration how many different scan interfaces you will need if you decide to use three different scanners. The list goes on and on…
Believe me, in the past five years we have spent more than 400 working days finding answers to these questions – so I know that the success of any project hinges on dealing with them in advance. Think about this and make sure you can tick every box on your check list before you start. It’s this sort of preparation that will make your project a success!
Claus Gravenhorst