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Full c o v e r a g e of the D o cu m e n t M a n a g e m e n t in du s tr y , in all its forms.

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INCORPORATING THE MICROGRAPHICS MARKET PLACE AND THE MICROGRAPHICS NEWSLETTER

Issue NO. 20

featuring HYBRD

ISSN 1476-3842

AUGUST 2003 READERS LETTERS PAGES 20-21

FREE INFORMATION G G Baker & Associates - suppliers of unbiased reference works for over 30 years - invite you to use their very extensive website at

THE GREEN SHEET

M IC R O G R A P H IC S M ARK ETIN G LTD.

Editor Tim Nixon

www.ggbaker.com

Administration

The UK's most comprehensive directory of document management products and services.

Tutorials relating to electronic document management, micrographics and hybrid systems.

The content is regularly updated and can be accessed w ithout charge.

Graphic Design

Prizm' Gray + High Volume Micrographics Scanner = Faster Throughput + Cleaner Images + Higher Quality If you have large volum es o f m icrofilm o r m icrofiche to p ro cess, getting a clean, straight, cro p p e d im age can really p u t a d ra g o n y our throughput. Enter Prizm® Gray - an application designed to e n h an ce large volum es of continuous tone (grayscale a n d c o lo r) im ages. Not only d o es it c ro p , deskew, re d u c e noise, th resh o ld , ro ta te an d resize - Prizm Gray u ses confidence values to catch exception im ages a n d sen d th em to an im age c o rre c tio n station fo r autom ated o p e ra to r exception handling. We th in k you’ll ag ree that confidence

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ADVERTISERS’ INDEX

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23 K odak..................................................................................... 24 MicroVue Products..................................................................5 Mercury Visual......................................................................23 MSTC...................................................................................... 23 OIT UK.................................................................................... 19 Service, Sales & Products.................................................. 23 The Microfilm S h o p ..............................................................11 TMSSequoia............................................................................. 2 Trans Media Technology....................................................... 3 Western Micrographics....................................................... 23

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The Perfect Irony A real-life experience from Editor Tim Nixon It is one of Life’s little ironies that my computer should choose the issue featuring “Hybrid Systems” to throw a fit of such proportion that it literally left me staggering under the weight of what this meant to the production of the August edition of The Green Sheet.

The cause is still a mystery to me and to the all of the AppleMac computer ‘experts’ that I have since consulted.

There was precious little prior warning of what was about to happen, other than the fact that my computer was reacting very slowly to my commands. This, in itself, wasn’t that unusual though in retrospect I think that, on this occasion, it was exceptionally lethargic.

The symptoms were simple - the computer, after shut down, just would not ‘boot’ up. I called in a local AppleMac specialist who, after inserting a diagnostic disk, informed me that the reason it could not start up was because there was no system left on the machine.

It was discovered that part of my Hard Drive had been erased or had erased itself. At this stage the finger of suspicion was pointed in my direction as ‘user error’ was the only obvious explanation but I know that I did nothing that could have had such an impact.

I doubt we will ever know for sure but there were two unusual circumstances that may have had a bearing. We had just moved office the day before, and we were going through one of the hottest heat waves ever experienced in the UK. Now, I’m no expert so I don’t know if either of those events could shed light but it no longer really matters, as it is all now just “water under the bridge.”

The irony, however, was not lost on me as the whole idea of the Hybrid System is to provide an analogue back-up to digital records. Unfortunately I did not practice what I have been preaching for the past couple of decades. I used to back­ up only once every month, and it was not unknown for me to leave it for longer.

Thus, when 1 lost my Hard Drive I lost all of the information that I had prepared for the August issue and records of past emails, which meant that I had to go back to as many of my contributors as I could remember for them to re-send their releases. Thankfully, they were, without exception, very understanding and sympathetic, though several did point out that I should have had back-up in place.

I ought to mention at this point that I now back-up my day’s work at the end of each day as, at my age, I don’t think that 1 could stand the excitement a second time.

This has certainly taught me a very valuable lesson, as I was always under the illusion that this sort of thing only happened to other people. I am hoping that by telling this true, sad tale that others may recognise the vulnerability and mortality of their records if they are kept only in digital form in only one location.

In the ensuing pages of this month’s feature we try to illustrate, with case studies and comment, the advantages of installing a hybrid system or outsourcing to a bureau that offers a hybrid solution, as most of today’s bureaux do.

Read on and enjoy.

Contact: Tim Nixon on tim@green-sheet.net

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Case Studies

CoNVERTiiNq Mixed A r c Ih ves For WEb ACCEssibiliry The M aryland State Archives is the historical agency for M aryland and serves as the central repository for governm ent records of perm anent value. These records date from the founding of the colony in 1643 to the 1990s. Included in the holdings are colonial and state executive, legislative and judicial records, as well as county probate land and court records, church records, business records, reports of county and municipal governm ents and special collections o f private papers, maps, newspapers and photographs. These are held in microfdm and original paper form.

Currently the Archives provide on-line access to 600,000 plans and survey records as well as 2 million other land records. It decided to seek a way of making other records dating back to the 17th century available on-line in a similar fashion.

“Our older records don’t scan well and have to be captured in grayscale,” said Kevin Sw anson, the Archives’ Director of Acquisition and Preservation. “We save the large files off-line because they are ju st too big to be practical for delivery over the internet. Our challenge was to provide the public w ith clean, readable, black and white images created from an

original grayscale scan. We w anted a solution that would autom atically straighten, despeckle, crop and threshold those images.”

The Archives chose Prizm Gray from TMSSequoia because it streamlined their conversion system, reduced the pressure on the staff of seven archivists who help users with their searches, and made it practical to add record series that were previously unavailable on-line.

“As an example, we did a test on 6,700 images. Based on our old process we estimated it would have taken someone 70 hours to prepare that m any images for the web, one image at a tim e,” said John M aranto, reference archivist. “Using Prizm Gray we did the work in half an hour.”

The softw are solution is a com prehensive image processing system th at enhances continuous tone (grayscale and colour) images converted from paper or rollfilm and microfiche. It optimises images for legibility and file size. It ensures the quality o f output images using confidence values to route images for autom ated operator exception processing. It also satisfies the M aryland archivists and their clients.

HybRid SysTEM saves S p a c e , I n creases O utput C onnecticut-based Travelers Insurance issues approxim ately 850,000 commercial policies per year.

The com pany started microfilming policies in 1972 and now has 40 million policies on microfiche, microfilm and CDs, along with stored instruction and policy materials.

The original move to microfilm came when the com pany was faced with a m ounting avalanche of paper. “We were at the point where paper was no longer feasible for long term storage,” said Hap Fitts, Director in Travelers’ Commercial Lines Department. “Our volume o f policies and the retrieval demand was constantly growing. We needed a fast, reliable process that could evolve with our volume demands, was efficient and could be upgraded technologically”.

Today Travelers captures paper policies with electronic scanners and microfilm cameras, specifically a Kodak Digital Science Scanner 9520 that is part of their Electronic M icroim ager com bined w ith a Kodak Document Archive Writer, along with several Kodak Intelligent Microimage scanners.

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The process o f capturing policies is largely automated.

Incom ing policies don’t have to be pre-sorted. They can be scanned as mixed batches, then placed into orderly folders, post-process, for filming using the Document Archive Writer. Kathy Rutledge, m anager o f records retention, said that scanning first and then converting to

film has advantages. “Before, when filming documents if there was an overlap you had to re-film, pull the docum ent and put the file on another roll. The scanner with Perfect Page software eliminates that. There are no overlaps or skewed images. We get more perfect rolls of film, it’s faster and more documents can be fit onto a roll.”

Travelers is using hybrid systems with the policies. The Intelligent Microimage Scanner’s capabilities are used to fax and e-mail documents, stream lining the retrieval process. Printing is also critical because Travelers responds to about 5,500 policy requests per month.

Outputs are increasingly being made on laser printers with the assistance of an Imagelink IMS+ Node module that allows for printing directly from the Intelligent Microimage Scanner.

The com pany praises the smaller footprint of some of the newer equipm ent it is using because the Commercial Lines Department works two shifts daily in a relatively small area. “We like to call it com pact,” said Fitts, “but it’s really space-challenged.” W ithout the compactness o f its new er equipm ent the departm ent couldn’t m aintain its production volume.

All in all, Travelers is very happy with its hybrid systems. “We’re technologically on a sound path today and into the future,” commented Fitts.

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Hybrid Imaging

By Jim Westoby President of e-lmage Data C o rp -------------------------------Most discussions about recent changes in microfilm hybrid imaging are about applications on the capture side of inform ation storage and use. There are also applications on the retrieval side. At e-ImageData, we see retrieval technology as a vertical m arket opportunity.

Hybrid applications on the retrieval side are intended for situations where users wish to store inform ation on microfilm, but access and distribute it electronically.

These are typically applications where the database of inform ation is very large and the frequency o f access is very broad, and frequently involve public use.

One example o f such an application is genealogy records and ancestry information stored on microfilm (see www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/extra/5046.asp) Genealogy databases are enorm ous and access is very broad. There is a considerable am ount of film -todigital conversion taking place, however a huge am ount of inform ation will continue to rem ain on film.

The opportunity is to develop equipm ent to provide the researcher an easy way to work with the film database. e-ImageData has been in the marketplace with the Microfilm ScanPro for two years and our experience has been that equipm ent for these applications must be easy to install, easy to use, reliable in public use situations, and affordable for the target market.

In essence, Microfilm ScanPro provides a “bridge” between the storage advantages o f microfilm and the convenience of electronics. Our approach with these applications has been to use hardw are and software that the user is already familiar with.

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For instance, e-Im ageData’s Microfilm ScanPro scanner operates like a typical flatbed docum ent scanner and the softw are provides simple drag-and-drop controls for ju st about every type of electronic distribution available (e-mail, fax, network, laser printing, and storage to other media like CD ROM). This m eans a person in a library doing genealogy research can simply e-mail the files to their home or bum them to a CD as the research progresses.

At e-ImageData, we are expanding this hybrid formula to include large format film images like engineering and architectural drawings, as well as large scale maps.

The ScanPro 35 com bines all o f the electronic distribution features o f the Microfilm ScanPro with a new software package, Auto ImageAssembler.

This com bination makes it possible to capture most any aperture card or 35mm image using two scans. The im age/scan process is highly autom ated, m aking it easy to use, and the result is a single, seamless image that is suitable for large form at viewing and printing.

The microfilm industry has undergone more change in the last five years than the preceding fifty years. These changes have created new product and service opportunities th at are continually evolving. The challenge is to understand these changes and m aintain a competitive advantage by evolving at the same pace, providing cutting-edge technology that continues to meet market demands.

Contact: James Westoby, e-ImageData Corp., 340 Grant Street., P.O. Box 270424, Hartford, WI 53027, U.S.A. Tel: 2 6 2 -6 7 3 -3 4 7 6 Fax: 2 6 2 -6 7 3 -3 4 9 6 jwestoby@ e-imagedata.com _

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Belt and Braces - A long term approach to records management at Standard Life Most businesses can get away with seven to ten years for retaining the vast majority of their business records depending on the laws in the country in which they are operating. However, if like Standard Life Assurance Company, your business revolves round pension policies and various other types of long term life policies, then records may need to be kept for nearly one hundred years!

What’s more you can’t adopt a policy of reducing risk as records get older. There is a certain inevitability that people are going to want to look at theses files at key times such as the maturity of a policy, on retirement or when somebody dies. So, comparing document lifecycle of the majority of business records with life records look something like this:

With headquarters in Edinburgh, Scotland, Standard Life has grown from a single office in 1825 to become Europe’s largest mutual lie assurance company with award winning products, over £83 billion ($133 billion) of assets under management and operations in Europe, Canada, USA, India, Hong Kong and South Korea.

The modern Central Business Records systems evolved from 1975. They came about through various methods of microfilming, using optical mark recognition and scanning systems.

The system evolved over the years but, by the end of the 1990’s, all paper records associated with policies were filmed on to 16mm film and details held in a jacketed microfiche system. As ’’service requests” (basically any communication to or from the client other than computer generated output) were received, the associated documents would also be filmed and added to the jacketed microfiche record. Although the filming and insertion of film into jackets was time consuming, Standard Life had meticulous files on all policies that could easily be copied. Security copies are held in a separate geographical location.

Stakeholder Pensions, required careful thought as the administrative charges associated with this product were very low and strictly controlled. Furthermore, Standard Life was expanding its portfolio into other product areas such as banking, investments and health products. In addition to this, the existing filming equipment was heavily utilised and nearing the end of its useful life after 7-8 years of hard labour!

Keith Peacock, Technical Consultant in the Central Business Records Group, did initially look into replacing ’’like for like” but decided they would have to consider a different approach very early on.

Replacing like for like was not really an option. Replacement equipment was of a similar functionality and performance to that which was already installed. It was labour intensive, and would not scale up - a doubling of equipment and personnel would be required to meet the growth. Furthermore, an analysis of future business requirements highlighted the need for a system capable of handling digital images. Workflow systems had been introduced for some newer products with data and document capture at source. This started with ’’service enquiries” and claims which originally came either on paper or telephone was now coming in from paper, telephone or email.

So, basically, a new approach had to be considered but the business recognised the value of film based archives for very long term records.

With new online applications coming on stream to support the business needs and the introduction of associated workflow systems, there obviously had to be an electronic system at the sharp end and, to support the long term archiving requirement, there had to be a film based solution in the back office. The approach adopted was an elegant solution based upon the existing records structure.

The system has grown to the extent that they were handling 3,500 enquiries per week from a database of over 15,000,000 jackets!

The main driver to change was a business initiative to put in place systems which could handle twice the volume of new business with existing resources. There were a number of reasons for this initiative of which one, the UK Governments

The existing system involved the capture of the paper documents in a folder. Once they had been accumulated, they

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The new system simply added functionality and reduced the heavy labour content involved in the filming and jacketing process. All business units involved in designing documents work together to produce documents that are easily completed and easily scanned thus simplifying the whole data capture business. Once the ’’transaction” is completed the associated documents become corporate records on the system. The records remain on the system for retrieval purposes and after a period of time (currently 31 days) then, if the case file has not been changed, all the information is also output to COM (computer output to microfilm). The process is completely automatic and only requires minimal labour for fiche handling and filing.

goes - ”If you want to get there, I wouldn’t start from here!”

- One of the problems that every large organisation such as Standard Life faces is the cumulative history of technology change. In addition to the original paper records and the microfilm records, Standard Life has a number of different forms of computer records. In addition to conventional COM generated microfiche, computer generated information from the old technology IBM mainframes is held in a central report distribution system called INFOPAC. Newer systems now use open architecture standards. The document management systems work effectively in their own right but do not directly interface with the system other than for the transfer of completed business.

PAGE 1

were filmed onto 16mm roll film, cut into strips and placed in jacketed microfiche. The fiche would then be copied, a copy placed in archive and the master retained in the Central Business Records, If a business unit required the information then the microfiche would be copied and the copy sent to the business unit. If additional information was generated by a service request, then the additional paper would be filmed and added to the jacketed microfiche master.

So, the biggest challenge facing records management in Standard Life today is probably the integration of disparate systems. There is a recognised business requirement for a ’’single view” of related information regardless of the source.

But with a document management team for group practices plus a new cross group records management team for records keeping principles and audit, Standard Life certainly seem to be taking the right steps to keep their records and procedures ahead of both business and legislative demands.

David Aspinall, Datum Solutions Limited, Datum House, 4 Priory Close, Fleet, Hampshire, GU51 4ED, Tel: 01252 612805, E-mail: daspinall@datum-solutions.co.uk

Visit THE GREEN SHEET Web Site at: w w w .green -sh eet.n et Should service requests be received for cases on micro before this new system was introduced, then the original microfiche can be scanned back into the system using fiche scanners.

This data can then be viewed online and, when the file has not been updated for 31 days all the data is output to COM and the COM microfiche replaces the old jacketed microfiche.

Both the Pensions and Underwriting business units also have access to the system so once historical data has been scanned back into the system users have full online access. This functionality will be extended to other business units.

The benefit of this approach is that: _ -

it provides the swift desk top access of an electronic system, it improves the long term archival strength of microfilm, it removes the manual labour of the conventional jacketed microfiche system, it can handle the anticipated business growth, it removes the risk of technological obsolescence.

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Barbara Anderson, Departmental Manager of Central Business Records explained "The introduction of digital based film products has helped us raise the profile of records keeping within the organisation and the department can now be more pro-active in the shaping of corporate policy and records management strategy.”

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T he U.S. Hybrid P ictu re Hybrid S y ste m s are d oin g w ell, particularly in Local G overn m ent and F in an cial A p p lication s Two segments of the U.S. micrographics hardware/software industry appear to be in relatively good health and doing well - hybrid imaging systems and Fdm-to-digital conversions. Both of them are built on systems that combine analogue (microfilm) and digital images. It’s not surprising, since both offer an ideal document management solution that provides the best for short- and long-term needs.

These hybrid systems are doing the job whether the work is done internally or by service bureaux. They are doing the job whether the images are captured initially on film or by scanning, because today’s technology makes moving from analogue to digital, and vice versa, easy. There are units to handle it either way and there are units that can scan and film simultaneously.

Not surprisingly, the biggest users of hybrid systems are also the biggest users of microfilm systems, per se. These are government agencies, especially on the local level such as county clerks and recorders, and financial organisations such as banks and insurance companies. They all have needs that call for both short-term and long-term solutions.

The digital product makes the most sense for easy (desktop) and immediate access by any number of interested parties, whether within an organisation or among the general public. The film product provides an inexpensive long-term storage medium that can always be digitised for mass retrieval when and if that becomes necessary.

When filming first makes the most sense.

Filming first makes the most sense if the information involved is to be retained for any reasonable period of time.

The filming creates an archive. Depending on how many people have to see it and where they are, the film can be duplicated and used for access, or it can be digitised for instant multiple user access. In the latter instance, the archive already exists and remains a constant. There are also unusual cases, such as when historic or fragile documents, books and maps are involved. Then filming first is called for because the less handling of such documents the better. And with scanning first there is always the likelihood that there will have to be additional scanning down the line to keep up with changes in digital hardware and software technology, so filming first makes sense there also.

However, scanning first is more practical if the documentation has only a short-term use and there is no legal or other reason for keeping it beyond a few years. If that situation changes and an archival need arises, the digital documentation can always then be written to film.

What’s available? Scanner-Filmers!

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For those who want to scan and film at the same time, Canon offers its DR 5060F, which it touts as a “scanner with a photographic memory". That translates more prosaically as a digital scanner with a built-in microfilm back-up system. It can simultaneously record images to a PC and to an archival microfilm record. A medium speed unit, the DR

5060F can scan at speeds up to 100 pages per minute, including different sized materials in the same batch. The microfilm output is on 16mm roll film with a choice of 24x or 57x reductions.

Another hybrid filmer-scanner is the Zeutschel OK 300 line. It is available in the United States and Canada through Crowley Micrographics (or in the U.K. through BestTec). The OK 300/301 is a hybrid that offers black and white 256 gray scale scanning and 16/35mm microfilming of up to AO/E size. It scans and/or microfilms an image in less than 10 seconds and has a variety of book cradles and tables.

For high speed conversion of digital information into film images, Kodak earlier this year introduced its 9600 series Archive Writers which replace the 4800 series units.

The new Archive Writer offers a better image quality, rising from 4800 to 9600 pixels (hence the series name change). At a 24x reduction, it translates 170 digital images per minute to film; at 40x reduction it converts 400 images per minute.

Along with the new units, Kodak introduced a new film for the Archive Writer and also a software module that will allow for a seamless bridge between a paper scanner, the Archive Writer and the also newly-introduced i7300 scanner. The latter has replaced the earlier Intelligent Microimage Scanner (IMS).

Also available: Scanner-Printers Additionally there are a number of digital microfilm scannerprinters on the market.

Fuji’s M Drive microfilm scanner is a desktop unit that connects to a PC. While there have been no major changes in the unit itself, since its introduction a half-dozen years ago, Fuji’s software partners have made improvements that, in effect, change some of the M Drive’s features. For example, in many instances (depending on the type of film), non-blipped and blipped retrieval can be read on the same M Drive. In the past, users had to purchase blipped or non-blipped units. e-Image Data (formerly InfoGraphix) has been in the marketplace with the Microfilm ScanPro for two years. President Jim Westoby sees hybrid retrieval technology as a vertical market opportunity. As an example he cites applications where the database of information is very large and the frequency of access is very broad, frequently involving public use.

Typical would be genealogy records and ancestry information in libraries where users work with a film database but want electronic access. Westoby says the ScanPre provides a “bridge” between storage advantages of microfilm and the convenience of electronic retrieval. The

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Another unit, the ScanPro 35, has been developed to include large format film images that may be on aperture cards or 35mm film. e-Image Data’s newest unit, to be released later this year, is the ScanPro Direct. It will offer all the features of the original ScanPro plus the ability to print directly to a laser printer with no computer required.

ALOS this year added its first digital film scanner, the ALOS Z-Scan 45 for low- to mid-volume film applications.

It is a desktop scanning system for both positive and negative film.

Document management software included with the unit allows users to view, scan, e-mail, fax, print and network all images stored on microfilm or to send the image to a laser printer.

Minolta continues to offer its MS6000 and MS7000 digital microfilm scanner-printers through its dealers. The company sees a good future for them and hybrid systems generally.

Ronnie Linzenbold, product marketing manager, Minolta Document Imaging Systems, noted, “We’re seeing interest in our (hybrid micrographic) solutions from new markets such as the pharmaceutical and biotech industries as well as county governments. There is an increase in digital and hybrid sales as micrographics customers transition away from analogue.”

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unit cable-connects to a PC and operates like a typical flatbed document scanner with software that provides simple dragand-drop controls for almost every type of electronic distribution.

In addition Minolta’s units are available through Kodak under Kodak branding. The latter also sells a digital readerprinter, the ABR 2400, which it inherited when it acquired Bell ft Howell’s microfilm business several years back.

Also available, though not aggressively marketed, are the Digital Print Station 4508 from Indus and the DRS Workstation from EyeCom. And, of course, all production microfilm scanners previously reported in these pages including those from Mekel, nextScan, SunRise Imaging, Staude, Wicks and Wilson, and Zeutschel - are vital components of the hybrid systems industry.

....and from Down Under

Where have all the innovators gone?

Microfilm as a long term storage media for digital data - dots and spaces not analogue text?

In this Industry/Profession we hear a continual call from our ranks for the leaders of Business and Government to join us in our belief in the long term benefit of using microfilm as the, or at least one of the, preferred long-term, archival storage media.

These leaders appear to be ignoring our plea or are deaf to our arguments. Poor old Microfilm they say, its time has past, not up to today’s needs, old technology can’t meet our instant retrieval requirement etc.

CD-Rom arrived on the scene at around the same time and put paid to this Australian RftD project.

The Australian system used Bell ft Howell and Anacomp (Datagraphix) COM units to produce microfiche with a capacity, at the time of 2 Megabytes per fiche, using a specific character set. The density of data per fiche at the time was restricted, to the best of my knowledge, due to the capacity of the reading arrays available, so with the current crop of CCD ft CMOS arrays, the density rate may be able to be improved dramatically.

Where have we gone wrong?

Where are the visionaries?

Is anyone ready to stand up and be counted?

Why not Digital Microfilm?

A feature of the process was the low error-rate achieved, with error-rates being achieved as low as 1 bit per 1,000 or an actual delivery error rate of 1 error per 100,000,000,000 bits, e.g. 1 error per 5,000 Microfiche. Not bad!

With a revised character set, or a rethink on the possibilities using today’s improved, though less numerous, COM devices who knows what capacity could be achieved.

We now have CCD (charge-coupled devices) and CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) arrays in use in the millions of Digital Cameras and other like devices and the capture clarity and speed increases day by day. How many dots and spaces can one fit on a 35mm wide strip of film? No frame spaces required so in theory the whole 30 Metres (100 Feet) of microfilm is available in one continuous data stream.

What about 1,000 feet or even larger rolls of 35mm microfilm? How many bytes, KB, MB, TB or PB (Either 1 quadrillion bytes or 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes) can be crammed onto a continuous length of 35mm film of whatever practical length?

If anyone is interested in the possibilities indicated above for a long term storage media which is immune to electromagnetic pulses and may have applications of a short term nature as well and who has a few million Australia $’s to fund the RftD to bring this partially proven concept to market or to purchase the Intellectual Property involved, contact me and we can work out a deal.

Has anyone attempted this process? The answer is yes! Did it become a commercial reality? The answer is a big NO! Why?

Contact: Laurie Varendorff ARMA via his email: Laurie.Varendorjf@Bigpond.com

The system was actually installed and running at a test site for 12 months with some issues still to be resolved.

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T he C ase for Hybrid Imaging “It's an easy one to make by flitch badler "

Surprising as it may seem to both users and vendors concerned with hybrid imaging systems on a daily basis, there are still many business executives who have no idea of what the term means or how it can help them.

possible before. It vastly improved organisations’ operations.

All of this begs the question, “If digital imaging systems are so powerful, why bother with hybrid imaging?”

Long-term vs. short-term: Different needs

What follows are some simple questions and answers that, we hope, explain and make the case for hybrid imaging.

The answer to the last question goes back to the difference between long-term and short-term needs.

What is hybrid imaging?

Put simply, hybrid imaging is supplementing digital images (images stored on magnetic or optical media or within a computer) with analogue images (images stored on microfdm).

The images may be originally created electronically and later converted to fdm or filmed first and then digitised. There are even units that fdm and scan simultaneously. No matter how it’s achieved, a hybrid imaging system is one that utilises images in both formats, each to do a specific job.

Why analogue images in a digital world?

Over the past several decades, technological changes have altered, probably forever, how vital records are captured, stored and retrieved. A big factor has been the advent of personal computers. As the power of the PC explodes so, geometrically, do applications tied to it.

Throughout the 1990s and subsequently, digital document management systems gained acceptance and popularity.

Powerful document management systems, coupled with the internet, brought access to information that was never

MANAGING BRITAIN’S MICROFILM LEGACY AMI T h e A dvan ce G roup Tel: 01902 459907 E-mail: docman@ami.co.uk www.ami.co.uk

When a document is new, access to, and use of, the document is frequent. It is required a lot less a month, year or decade later. During a document’s early life (the short term), there is little need for anything other than digital imaging. However, as the life of a document increases, that need begins to change. Technological obsolescence raises its head.

Yesterday’s wonderfully accessible information becomes increasingly hard to get at. In the consumer world some wellknown examples include vinyl phonograph records, 8-track tapes, and the Betamax video recorder. That trio just scratches the surface of the list. All of these information storage systems were replaced with newer technologies that made the older ones obsolete.

The same has been true in the business, institutional and government information and document management worlds.

New information is no longer stored on 9-track tape, 8” or 5.25” floppy disks. DVD is now moving to supplant CDs and optical disks are fast becoming relics.

The pace of technology is so fast that it often turns over in less than a decade. Hardware, software and media change and change and continue to change. Today’s systems become tomorrow’s anachronisms.

So what does this mean for documentation that has to be kept long-term - i.e. a decade or longer? By this we refer to information that cannot be lost because of business needs or legal statutes mandate it be kept for a year, a decade, a century, or even forever.

The answer to avoiding problems with technological obsolescence is to keep a human-readable (analogue) copy of the information or document.

The most obvious answer is a paper copy, and this may well still be the most frequently-used method of long-term storage.

It works but it also has drawbacks, the most obvious of which is storage space. There are other drawbacks too, like environmental conditions required for proper storage. For example, in some Latin American countries important paper records are stored in ever-expanding document warehouses.

Finding a 30-year old document stored in a corrugated box in an unairconditioned warehouse is not easy.

The best - albeit more costly - is another analogue approach: micrographic copies of documents that must be kept for long periods of time. It saves space and guarantees retrievability and accessibility. Microfilm systems, hardware, media and retrieval software have been improved tremendously, but the basic technology hasn’t changed since its inception.

Today, as part of a hybrid system, it offers another great advantage. Because film is readily converted to electronic formats it links existing and future imaging and digital document management systems. Hybrid has taken hold an its advantages mean that it's here to stay.

‘The Microfilm Shop makes exciting changes” W ^A

During the sum m er we have been very busy building up our com pany and we have som e very exciting new s to announce

we are hosting two open days:Tuesday 7thOctober - Trade Day Wednesday 8 th October - End user day at the Hinckley Golf Club in Leicestershire, UK Brand n ew nam e and im age for th e M icrofilm S h o p G ro u p o f co m p a n ies

SMA ©DOCUMENT UK dealership for large format document scanners

®

^^M iadfilm gbop

New colours and logo for The Microfilm Shop division of the group - to be announced As there is so much to talk about we w ould like to invite everybody to com e along to our O p en Days to learn all about our exciting new developm ents. As places are lim ited we would very m uch appreciate it if you can fill out the invitation form below (or the one on our web site www.microfilm.com) to reserve your place.

INVITATION FORM_______________________________________ Please reserue___________ places for the 7th October/ 8th October (please delete) llame(s)_______________________________________________

Company___________________________

Address__________________________________________________________________________________ Tel_____________________________ Fax_______________________e-m ail__________________________ Please reserue a priuate 10 minute slot after the main presentations for me to learn more about the following products (tick as many as required) OITIUK) Ltd _____ l)ew brand and company direction______ Wicks 6 Wilson film scanners______ Staude 6 SIIW ranges_____ IHI IS Software______ ________________________________________________

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Critical meetings coming up Congress seeks NARA consideration of hybrid digital/microfilm systems for maximum efficiency.

The topic was long-term preservation of records at a July 8 meeting of the Subcommittee on Technology Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census of the U.S. House of Representatives. The session provided the micrographics and hybrid imaging systems industry an opportunity to promote the hybrid approach (a digital/microfilm marriage) to storing government records so they can be available and accessible both today and in the long-term future.

(1) Whether NARA has done a cost analysis for upgrading software and hardware that would be required for the proposed 400 Year Digital Archive and how far out such a study extends;

Russ Burkel, representing the Film-based Imaging Association (FbLA) and working with key suppliers like Eastman Kodak, helped gather speakers and suggest questions the subcommittee chairman might pose to the representative of NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) who testified on NARA policy and procedures. What NARA, as the Federal government’s major archival repository, does serves as a pace setter for many government agencies.

(3) How is NARA addressing the issue of accountability? For example, given the known loss of information from previous digital systems, is a backup non-digital system planned? If digital documents are lost for any reason will the NARA individuals responsible for the backup/non backup decision be held personally responsible?

NARA to date has been a proponent of technology-driven digital archiving. It is funding multi-million dollar research at the government’s San Diego Computer Center on the proposed “400 Year Digital Archive”. NARA has been in the camp of those considering digital as “today’s” information medium and microfilm as yesterday’s medium and “old hat”. The purpose of promoting the FblA-driven hybrid systems approach is that it currently offers the best answer in terms of accessibility, cost and avoiding perilous dependence on strictly technology-driven solutions.

Questions posed by the subcommittee chairman to the NARA representative covered:

(2) Will taxpayers be required to fund ongoing upgrade costs or does NARA plan to impose citizen user fees to cover these ongoing costs? Has the public been informed as to funding?

(4) Has NARA evaluated the Census 2000 hybrid system to determine its feasibility as a fail/safe solution for preserving Federal government records? The Census system, which was adopted for the Census after intervention by the House subcommittee, uses digital technology for easy and immediate access to information and microfilm for secure long-term storage of information.

Other speakers, who are successfully using hybrid systems in state government records systems, included the Land Deeds Director of the state of Virginia and a representative from the state of Michigan’s Archives.

The House of Representatives adjourns in August and any subsequent hearings would be scheduled in the Fall.

Case Study

Meeting Public Service expectations Haywood County is located in western North Carolina in the Great Smokey Mountain range. The county has grown with many out-of-state retirees building summer homes, to the point where it now has over 55,000 residents. As the county grows, service expectations from the public have increased for better access to vital records.

The County Register of Deeds had previously converted their backlog of 16mm microfilm to digital images for import into a new county imaging archive and retrieval system. The County wanted to provide the public better access for retrieval of deed records via the internet. Unfortunately, the image quality of many of the microfilm and subsequent digital images was poor. Microfilm had been spliced with the original and duplicate microfilm on one spool. Film density and overall image quality was unacceptable in some instances.

Thus, all of the digital images contained major quality issues and couldn’t be relied on for retrieval.

The County turned to Virtual Image Technology (VIT) to correct the quality issue. VIT’s expertise in micrographics (28 years) paved the way for a complete restructuring of the current microfilm archive. VlT’s technicians separated the splices and reconnected the microfilm to create a uniform roll

to be duplicated. The microfilm was then duplicated with three different settings to achieve optimal quality and the best images out of the three samples were then spliced together to form a quality microfilm roll.

Over 500,000 images were scanned with book and page index.

The final output provided a quality image that could be utilised by the public. All day forward microfilm production is now done with an Archive Writer to provide archival backup to the new imaging system. Additionally, all historical images that were scanned will be archived to microfilm to replace the old microfilm volumes.

Haywood County is happy as it is now able to provide quality images to the public. The old, poor quality microfilm archive has been replaced with VIT’s newly-created film and digital images. Day forward archival microfilm is now quality controlled and managed by trained service experts and overall access to documentation is better and faster.

Additionally, by law the County is required to archive images to a microfilm roll and submit these archival rolls to the State Archives. The County can now do this with a quality product for both past and future images.

Real-World Solutions for Today’s Business Challenges offered by Boston Information Management Conference -

A seemingly endless flow of regulations mandated by the federal government such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and new records management standards including ISO 15489 are rapidly changing the information management environment for businesses and organisations throughout the world. The 2003 ARMA International Conference and Expo offer information management professionals the latest and most comprehensive knowledge and technology available that addresses this most critical organisational requirement.

The conference will take place at Boston’s John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center, October 19-22, and will feature more than 75 programmes presented by leading information management professionals and cutting-edge business experts.

Featured keynote speakers include William L. Hooton, Deputy Executive Assistant Director, Office of Records Management, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), whose presentation “Information Challenges in the New FBI” will focus on his efforts to modernise the agency’s records management programme in the wake of the Timothy McVeigh investigation and the events of September 11, 2001. Francis de Souza, CEO of IMlogic Inc., will discuss the potential impact of instant messaging, the next big communications technology, in his presentation “Instant Messaging - The New Record.”

Effective management of electronic records will be the focus of many of the educational programmes, including “From the E-mail Server to the Courtroom - Controlling Electronic Risk,” “E-mail Accountability and Compliance: Issues, Trends and Alternatives,” “Integrated Document Management or Records Management - Best Practices and Technologies,” and “Implementing ISO 15489 in a Global Fortune 100 Company.”

In addition, conference attendees will learn the latest about: the ongoing changes to Sarbanes-Oxley, e-mail retention and the law, the HIPAA privacy rule, and other legal and regulatory issues affecting the management of corporate records.

The conference, taking place one year after the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley and the new focus on corporate responsibility, will bring together experts from around the world. They will provide attendees with the most up-to-date information about how the information management

profession has changed in the past year and what to expect in the coming year.

In addition to the educational sessions, information management professionals seeking solutions to today’s increasingly complex business challenges will be able to visit with more than 160 manufacturers and suppliers of information management products in the Expo hall. There will also be numerous briefings on the latest cutting-edge technology in the information management industry. The Expo is open to the public without charge.

Co-locating at the 2003 ARMA Conference will be the KMPro Society’s Innovative Enterprise World Summit, the World Symposium on Knowledge and Innovation Management, an executive summit dedicated exclusively to meet the end user’s knowledge management needs (www.kmpro.org) and business continuity training conducted by the Disaster Recovery Institute International (www. drii. org).

About ARMA International Established in 1956 with a current international membership of more than 10,000, ARMA International (www.arma.org) is the oldest and largest association for the records and information management profession. It provides education and information to professionals who are responsible for the efficient maintenance, retrieval and preservation of vital information created in public and private organisations in all sectors of the economy.

INTERNATIONAL® To learn more about the ARMA International 2003 Boston Conference and Expo or to register, visit the web site at http://expo.arma.org.

Contact: Bob Tillman, ARMA International Tel: 913 217 6006 Email: btillman@arma.org

SPECIFIC FILM BASED MEETINGS AT ARMA EVENT October 19, 2003 The annual meeting of the Microfilm Services Group at the ARMA Conference is to be held just prior to the Expo opening in Boston, Massachusetts.

9:30 to 10:00: ISG business 10:00 to 11:00: Overview of the film based vendors at the ARMA Show and a brief description of the current State of the Micrographics Industry by Bob Zagami of ImageMax. 11:00 to 11:30: Q ft A

Also several workshops prior to and during this 48th Annual Conference held October 18, 19, 20, 21 ft 22 will review the benefits of micrographics for the records manager.

At the time of going to press we do not, as yet, have a meeting room assigned and ARMA is in the middle of reorganising all ISGs. Contact: John Glover, MDS/ Sourcecorp / Agfa, 800-9692556, ex 367 email: Jyiglover@earthlink.net

The new role of microfilm in the engineering industry.

As seen through the eyes of Angela Nightingale of DSS (UK) In keeping with trends seen in other industries, there has been a recent upturn in the use of microfilm in the engineering and manufacturing sectors.

versatile and cost efficient 35mm aperture card plotter on the market. It can also help you make the transition to digital without interrupting your current aperture card data storage system by replacing your old microfilm camera or older digital card plotter.

Many large corporations have invested heavily in this technology over the years and are required for contractual, legal or commercial reasons to continue using microfilm.

The role of microfilm however has changed. In the past technical documents were distributed using duplicate microfilm cards. This was seen as the most efficient and effective way of sending this information to other users.

35mm Microfilm cards are an international standard and can be easily viewed and printed.

The advent of digital technologies has changed this and in most cases, 35mm microfilm aperture cards are now used in tandem with digital systems.

The CADMIC dryCAM

A vital issue that needs addressing at the time of implementing any new digital document management system is the question of risk management with regard to the long­ term archiving of a company’s vital engineering drawings and associated documentation.

Properly stored, the images will retain their information for 100 years or more. Should you need to re-digitise the image on the aperture card, both the Hollerith and image information can be digitally extracted in seconds with an aperture card scanner and imported into a document management system.

These documents need to be preserved for contractual, legal or commercial reasons.

How it Works

This information is going to be stored on a CAD system or EDM solution for ready accessibility and ease of distribution, but not for long term storage. Archiving should not be confused with data back-up.

A recent article in a national newspaper states that: ’’The major threats to corporate data integrity are: hardware failures, human errors, computer viruses, natural disasters, software malfunctions, and computer crime.”

Some of the issues that need to be taken into account when implementing digital systems are: 1) Media 2} Technological advances 3) Data migration standards 4) Legal requirements 5) Disaster recovery This is where microfilm has its place used in parallel with a digital system.

There have been some advances is the way microfilm aperture cards are produced. A new environmentally friendly aperture card plotter, The Microbox CADMIC dryCOM aperture card plotter has recently been launched.

The Microbox CADMIC diyCOM is an aperture card plotter that streamlines the production and archiving process by connecting directly to your network and automatically converting your drawings from digital files directly to silver halide aperture cards for duplication, distribution and storage.

It is a high volume, high quality microfilm card plotter. With a throughput of 60 cards per hour, it is the most productive,

The CADMIC dryCOM is easily configured, once the system is attached to your network, just fill the input hopper with dry silver halide plotter cards and deposit the images and index information into the plot input queue of the CADMIC. You simply load the 500-card cassette and adequate supplies into the machine, and leave it to work on its own. The system will plot the images in the queue and soon you will have a stack of high-quality master cards.

Green and Clean The CADMIC dryCOM with thermal processing station, offers the possibility of lower cost archival microfilm, since it requires no chemicals and no waste disposal.

Features ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Environmentally friendly _ no chemicals or waste High productivity with unattended operatio'n Simplifies aperture card creation Automates image conversion and header creation Eliminates manual filming Punches and/or prints index on master card Significantly reduces operation costs Fast and easy to use Easy network integration Replaces conventional microfilming technology Flexible to meet your future needs

To oStain an overview brochure ft specification sheet on the CADMIC dryCOM, visit www.dss-uk.co.uk or call Angela at DSS UK on 01344 350510.

North Wales based office equipment supplier Business Systems has re-branded itself as b2 Business Systems and announced major growth plans.

Twice winner of the annual Xerox Partner of the Year awards, the company is extending its abilities to supply complete computer systems and network solutions, providing business customers with a single source of equipment and technical expertise, together with first class service and support.

Managing director Paul Rutt said: “The launch of b2 Business Systems signals the start of a new era of growth for us. The combination of world class products with truly local service is the winning formula which will fuel our future expansion.”

provider and supplier of Document Management Solutions Evolved from 3M and Imation..............

• Hardware

- Large format scanners and plotters - Aperture card scanners and plotters

• Supplies

- Aperture cards, camera cards, plotter cards, duplicards - Chemicals for 3M cameras and microfilm plotters - Toner for 3M reader printers

(From left) Welsh Assembly Government member Sandra Mewies A M and David Hanson MP wish managing director Paul Rutt well at the launch ofb2 Business Systems.

David Hanson, the local MP and parliamentary private secretary to Tony Blair, has welcomed the announcement, which will immediately create seven new jobs at the company’s Flint head office.

Speaking at a party to mark the launch, Mr Hanson said: “As a b2 customer as well as local MP, I welcome the new company and the extra employment they are bringing to the area. ”1 am sure North Wales and the North West will benefit from this reorganisation and re-branding - I wish them every success for the future.”

Formed by local businessman Paul Rutt in 1991 and currently employing 20 people, the company specialises in office machines and support. It is now recruiting seven extra staff to drive growth: two Xerox sales executives, a computer networks specialist and four telephone business people.

David Hanson's constituency office is one of more than 1000 customers using the company’s equipment, in a region which covers North Wales and large parts of north west England.

Contact: Paul Rutt, Managing Director, b2 Business Systems - 01352 793100

• Services

- Scanning of drawings and cards - Plotting of 35mm aperture cards - Service and maintenance of all 3M micrographics equipment

• Software

- Document Management Software Web:

www.dss-uk.co.uk

Email:

info@dss-uk.co.uk

Phone:

01344-350527

PAGE 15

Re-brand signals growth Nationwide for Xerox Partner field service

Kodak adds New Image Quality features to i800 Series Scanners iThresholding improves total performance in high speed scanning Kodak has added iThresholding, a feature that automatically adjusts bitonal brightness and contrast for scanned documents, to its i800 Series Scanners. An enhancement to Kodak’s Perfect Page Scanning, iThresholding is an on-board solution for bitonal applications that reduces the need for pre­ sorting, rescans and post-image processing by automatically adjusting for highlighting, low contrast and lightweight paper - situations that previously required manual adjustments.

Perfect Page Scanning with iThresholding captures images and optimises them at full processing speed. Edges are sharp, images are deskewed and borders removed without loss of information. In many cases, because images are cleaner, file sizes are smaller. “Customers have expressed a need to reduce pre-sorting of mixed documents of varying contrasts and backgrounds,” said Robert Young, UK Manager, Kodak Capture and Imagelink. “With iThresholding, customers are able to improve the conversion of images from greyscale to bitonal with outstanding legibility of text and lines minimising unneeded markings and shaded areas.”

This is the first time that iThresholding has been available on Kodak’s highest-speed scanners. iThresholding was added to the Company’s mid-range Kodak Digital Science 3520 Scanner in January.

“Colour on the fly" is also new to the i820 and i840 Scanners.

Customers can choose to scan the majority of their documents either in bitonal or colour with the option to switch back and forth quickly and easily. “Colour on the fly” is being achieved with the use of a toggle patch, which is also available on the Kodak Digital Science 3590C Scanner. “The toggle patch has been such a popular feature that our i800 Series customers were asking us to make it available for their use. Responding to those requests, we added this easy-to-use functionality on the i800 Series,” added Young.

A further enhancement to the i800 Series is a new Brightness and Contrast Control feature that allows customers to choose the best colour output for the application. Customers can use the default colour tables provided, or create and save an infinite number of customised tables. An upgrade kit that includes iThresholding, “colour on the fly” and the Brightness and Contrast Control is available through imaging resellers.

According to Young, “...the new features that we’ve added to the i800 Series Scanners, provide scanner operators with even more opportunities to optimise performance of their scanners, which in turn provides greater productivity within document management operations.”

The Kodak i800 Series Scanners are high-speed, high volume production scanners with an unlimited recommended daily volume. The scanners feature SurePath paper handling for fast, streamlined, jam-free document feeding, 3-D multi-feed detection and K o d a k ’ s proprietary Tricolour Plus CCD sensor, which enables bitonal or colour scanning at high resolution and high speed.

Picture shows

◄ the Kodak i840 high speed scanner

Kodak solves Beds Crisis Kodak Commercial Imaging offers free ROl calculation service for hospitals According to recent research, 200-250,000 patient files are kept on paper in each hospital in the UK, taking up a lot of space that could be used for clinical care. Kodak Commercial Imaging today launched an initiative to promote the use of appropriate storage for medical records, rather than filling rooms with hard copy documents, to free up valuable hospital space.

The NHS is working hard to develop EPR (Electronic Patient Records), with obvious benefits in terms of space saving and enabling easy access to details on any patient. There is, however, a strong need for long-term technology-independent storage of medical records. Dependency on digital records alone creates unnecessary risks, as digital files require specific hardware and software technology systems to access them, as well as being susceptible to corruption and alteration. In the long-term these records can become unreliable, or worse, totally inaccessible! This means that at some point these electronic records will have to undergo a potentially costly migration to the then-current storage media

Kodak is, therefore, launching a free ROI calculation service to enable hospitals to calculate the true costs of storage over the entire lifetime, to enable managers to make the appropriate choices.

"Kodak has a rich history in helping the healthcare sector manage risk by providing equipment, software and services to improve the efficiency and reliability of archiving documents,” said Robert Young, UK Manager for Capture and Imagelink at Kodak Commercial Imaging.

Reference Archiving offers a digital-to-analogue-to-digital solution that combines short-term reference capabilities with long-term archiving. Kodak’s Reference Archiving solution, incorporating digital-to-film writers and a film-to-digital scanner, enables hospitals to convert digital documents and data into archival microfilm and then reconvert the images fronj film to digital files for sharing and distribution.

Contact: Robert Young, Kodak Commercial Imaging on 01442 844986 or by email on robert.m.young@kodak.com

Minolta formalises relationship with KIP Partnership expands versatility of Minolta's Digital Microform Scanners Having reached a formal agreement with KIP America, Minolta Corporation’s Business Products Group announced it will directly market and sell the Starprint 2000 Series of large format printers in conjunction with its MS7000 Digital Microform Scanner.

include engineering, maintenance and manufacturing drawings, as well as deeds and public works documents. Using Minolta’s optional Aperture Card Feeder, up to 150 such documents can be quickly and automatically scanned.

MS7000 Digital Microform Scanners

“Minolta is focused on finding ways we can solve our customers’ document-based problems,” said Bud Murphy, executive vice president and general manager, Minolta's Business Products Group. “Our MS7000 microfilm scanner is widely used to view large format drawings that have been stored on aperture cards. Until now, however, there was no way to print these oversized drawings after viewing them on the scanner. Our partnership with KIP America makes strategic sense because it solves this problem and allows Minolta to offer customers a productive and economical, endto-end scan, view and print system for large format documents.

“We chose to partner with KIP America because their largeformat printers are a perfect match for the automated scanning capabilities of Minolta’s MS7000 scanner and because they produce outstanding prints,” says Murphy.

The Starprint 2000 Series Printers have been tested to work seamlessly with Minolta’s MS7000. Once the document is viewed on the MS7000, it can be digitally enhanced and easily printed on a Starprint 2000 Printer, or scanned and sent via e-mail, or faxed from a PC to save on mail or courier costs.

The MS7000 makes it easier to read, scan and print to a PC when using microfilm. The MS7000 supports a wide range of microform media options for film, fiche, jacket and card formats. With standard dual output, users can switch from PC scanning to laser printing at the touch of a button. High resolution PC scanning at up to 800 dpi lets customers use and distribute microform information via websites, e-mails, faxes, and desktop publishing. The MS7000 has two output channels - one for high-speed laser printing and the other for scanning to a PC. In addition, a motorised image rotation and de-skew feature is standard on both scanners.

The MS7000 and KIP America printer solution is especially valuable to companies that have archives of microfilmed drawings on aperture cards. These documents typically

Contact: Dan Gallagher, Minolta Corporation Tel: 201-934-5371 EmaiT.dgallagher@minolta.com or visit www.minoltausa.com.

Most large format documents have tiny details that must be reproduced with the utmost clarity. The Starprint 2000 printers use High-Definition Print (HDP) technology, directcontact toner and calibrated LED heads to provide the image quality required by these documents.

K onica o ffe rs PowerRetrieve Konica Business Machines (UK) Ltd has concluded an exclusive marketing agreement with InfoCAP Technologies Ltd allowing Konica to be the only copier manufacturer to offer its customers the InfoCAP PowerRetrieve electronic document management system. PowerRetrieve is an out-of-the-box Windows based file management and knowledge retrieval solution.

PowerRetrieve can capture and store scanned paper-based documents and existing electronic files, e-mails etc, converting the scanned images into computer readable text files (ASCII) and automatically indexing every character within the content of the document. This allows users to search and retrieve documents by referencing any information held within the documents’ contents. The Adaptive Pattern Recognition technology used by PowerRetrieve will even overcome OCR (Optical Character Recognition) errors, misspelt words or inaccurate search queries to find the information being searched for.

InfoCAP Technologies has developed a seamless integration between PowerRetrieve and the full range of Konica document imaging systems providing a comprehensive electronic document management solution for customers. PowerRetrieve is

compatible with both networked or standalone document capture.

For InfoCAP Technologies, David Dawes, Managing Director said “This agreement brings together two best of breed product ranges creating a single seamless solution for Konica customers throughout the UK. We are delighted with this partnership which shows the focus and commitment Konica have to providing their customers with total document solutions”.

Commenting on the agreement, John Howard, UK Marketing Director for Konica said, “We are committed to providing our customers with Total Document Management (TDM) solutions.

As part of our TDM policy Konica is partnering with selected solution providers such as InfoCAP Technologies to offer our customers the best document management technology available. We are confident that the range of TDM solutions offered by Konica will be a key factor for customers in selecting Konica as their imaging system provider".

Contact: Mike Pickin, Konica Business Machines (UK) Ltd Tel: 01268 534444 Fax: 01268 282480 E-mail: mpickin@konicasolutions.co.uk www.konica.co.uk

Exciting news from The Microfilm Shop They’ve certainly had a busy Summer Throughout the first half of this year The Microfilm Shop management team has been very busy negotiating and planning for the future. As a result there are a number of developments they are now ready to announce.

Acquisition of OIT (UK) Ltd OIT (UK) Ltd will prove to be a valuable acquisition as it is the exclusive UK and European distributor for the award winning OIT Inc. DocFinity suite of Document and Records Management software products. DocFinity products cover all aspects of Electronic Document Content Management and Workflow and is ideal for the larger enterprise-wide solution with extensive markets such as health, local government, banking and insurance.

New Corporate Image Following the purchase of OIT, The Microfilm Shop Group now comprises of five individual companies and, in order to avoid a confused marketing message, a brand new corporate image is being created along with a new web site. All the existing companies within the group will continue to trade to trade under their current names but will be marketed as part of the new umbrella group. In the absence of the actual name we will refer to the new corporate body as the “Group”.

The Microfilm Shop The Microfilm Shop will, in future, be one of the companies that make up the new Group but will, in turn, itself be having a corporate facelift, including new logo and colours. The aim of this new development is to modernise the image and further promote of one of the leading worldwide players in the micrographics market place.

All of the new names and logos will be unveiled at the “Open Days” at the Hinckley Golf Club in October.

Wicks ft Wilson dealership More good news is that the Group has recently been approved

as a main dealer for the range of Wicks £t Wilson products for UK and Ireland. Particularly timely with the launch of the new WftW RF200 16/35mm microfilm scanner that is capable of scanning up to 180 images per minute. An RF200 will be on show at Hinckley.

Staude dealership The Group has also attained main dealership of Staude high speed document scanners (over 200 images per minute), microfilm production equipment, microfilm scanners and the unique Digifiche - the digital to microfiche writer. The Digifiche will also be available at Hinckley for visitors to test.

Exclusive SMA UK dealership The Group now has exclusive UK dealership of the excellent A2 and A3 large format document scanners from SMA in Germany. Under a new management and ownership team SMA are offering their existing products at very competitive prices and have plans for some exciting new products. The SMA 23 scanner will be on view at Hinckley.

IMIS (Image Manager Information Software) IMIS is the Group’s own “off-the-shelf’ software product.

IMIS has been developed further this year with added modules to allow for a client server version that runs on SQL, thus enabling it to handle hundreds of users across WANs and to give web access. The designer himself will be at Hinckley to discuss the new additions and to answer questions.

Anyone who would like to hear more about the Group that is evolving from The Microfilm Shop and all o f the new products and services on offer should try to attend the Hinckley Golf Club in Leicestershire on Tuesday 7th or Wednesday 8th October 2003. As places are limited you should complete the form on page 11 and return it as soon as possible or you can reserve your place online by visiting the web site at www.microfilm.com.

New start fo r SMA Sch au t SMA Schaut GmbH was founded in the late sixties. By that time the core business of SMA was the development, production and marketing of large format microfilm cameras for 16mm film, 35mm film and aperture cards. In addition SMA manufactured reader printers for roll film and aperture cards. The products were distributed through a world wide dealer network.

At the beginning of the eighties SMA signed an OEM agreement with 3M. By this time SMA employed approximately 160 people. Early in the nineties they entered the digital world and started to develop large format scanners and plotters.

Due to the dramatic decline in the micrographic industry and the rather high costs of developing new digital equipment, the company went into liquidation and was restructured under the name SMA Document GmbH. This new company concentrated on the development of scanners for books and large format documents. In 2001 the company was renamed SMA Electronic Document GmbH. On June 30, 2003 the company was sold to an investor from Scandinavia. Unfortunately Josef Schaut passed away only

four days later. As of July 1, 2003 SMA has been under new management. The new Managing Director is Mr. Ralph Fuchs (ralph@sma-edoc.com). SMA now also has a consumable branch and is exporting Staude equipment. The person in charge for this part of the business is Mrs. Peggy Zilian (peggy@sma-edoc.com).

In the middle of June SMA opened up a subsidiary in Seoul, Korea which will handle the Asian market.

For 2004 it is planned to open up an office in the USA to handle the whole of the American continent.

SMA recently moved premises as they are in the process of expanding their business. The new contact details are as set out below: SMA Electronic Document GmbH, Max-Planck-Strasse 12, 61184 Karben, Germany Tel: +49 6039 484410 E-Mai: maiI@sma-edoc.com

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RERDERSLETTERS RERDERSLETTERS It is gratifying to see that people are still responding to David Aspinall’s article “The wove from microfilm" that appeared in the June issue - please keep the debate going by replying to the following.

Dear Editor I am interested to note that support for long term storage of data on microfilm is still favoured by most of your contributors. I am concerned, however, by the absence of any reference to the archival testing of film, especially as the new hybrid system microfilms are frequently sent out for processing by subcontractors.

Any quantity of films sent out for processing by an outside contractor, should be returned after processing, accompanied by a certificate indicating that an independent methylene blue test to British Standards has been carried out on the batch of film processed. This should indicate the results and confirmation of their archival quality. No film can be claimed archival unless certified testing has been carried out to British Standards

in this case the clip. Prior to this they worked only with film rolls in cardboard boxes that get lost or damaged and they had to show most patrons how to thread the 35 mm film.

Needless to say, they loved the clip and didn’t know why the 35 mm film could not be handled the same way. The same of course applies to open reel 16 mm.

The clip design was a major improvement over the old ”K” and the still used ”M” cartridge, due to no leader or trailer splicing.

The only problem was lack of security and labelling space compared to the ”K” and ”M”, due to being too open. But the new ’’closed” standard cartridge has solved that, not that many people besides our standards committees and AIIM know about it, however.

What we should have had long ago is a 35 mm version of the closed cartridge and universal transports that take both 16 and 35 mm cartridges with at least semi-automatic threading.

The minor expense of fastening the film to the supply reel and replacing the cardboard with the plastic housing in volume would not be that much. Access did it.

In your feature article on Nationwide, Bob Stubbs refers to 1.5 million mortgages held in paper files. I hope when planning this department he remembers the catastrophe of a similar organisation, Bradford a Bingley Building Society who lost tens of thousands of customer deeds and legal documents destroyed by a fire due to the method of storage and a 10 year old arsonist with a box of matches. I agree with David Aspinall that a hybrid system should be used with microfilm for security as well as convenience.

[In today’s environment I see no justification for a microfilm jukebox. But were there to be one, it should be just one large roll of 105 mm that is multi-track.]

Don Abbott, Managing Director - Dass Laboratories Ltd. Birmingham, UK. Tel: +(0)121 550 3518

What librarian wouldn’t like to have an excuse for heaving his/her old manually-threaded machines into the dumpster out back?

With all that has been invested in 16 mm cartridges and the retrieval/viewing equipment that accommodates them, how much more would it take to make a 35 mm version to thus eliminate ’’leaders that snap and film that comes off the supply reels"?

Dear Editor, Having been involved with roll microfilm retrieval RftD, manufacturing, and sales since 1963,1 would like to add my comments to those of Gerald Baker and John Negus in your July issue, regarding what David Aspinall said about automated systems in your June issue.

I agree with John that sales needs to quit apologising that microfilm is not high tech and sell its unique advantages.

And I agree with what Gerald had to say about the Kodak Kims, Ragen, and the Image Systems Carousel. Let’s not go back there!

Ed Rummel, BlipChip Products Company erummel@blipchip.com Dear Editor

Knowing what I do the history of the 16 mm cartridge and having contributed to the standard, I have to fault our industry leaders for their lack of real standardisation at the onset. Just compare the success of the audio cassette by Norelco and today’s Compact Disc (CD) with the history of the 16 mm cartridge and the lack of any 35 mm cartridge.

I’ve always believed in freedom, competition, that good wins out over evil. In my younger days, Superman fought for truth and justice and the American way. Yeah, I’ve always believed in that stuff. Even companies used to do business the old fashion way, by telling the truth. They borrowed money with the intent of paying it back, and they did. Then came the dot com crowd, Enron, WorldCom etc. They pitched investors with B.S. So much for business ethics, and as for telling the truth, what’s that??? Guess I’m old fashioned. Maybe a bit naive?

How about telling the truth concerning electronic and paper record preservation?

When our local library got an Access System some years ago, I asked the research librarians there how they liked it. This was the first time they had any experience with a cartridge,

I’ve spent my life in the microfilm business, I was there on the way up and I’m still in it. For years, I’ve been preaching the analogue / digital marriage because it’s the right thing to do.

PAGE 20

But I also agree with David’s point about leaders that snap and film that comes off the supply reels. Who would not rather use a CD?

L

If Recordak (Eastman Kodak) and Imation/3M had not abandoned 35 mm way back when they did, and had they worked together on standards, instead of trying to always outdo each other, we would likely have a 35 mm cartridge and a more widely used 16 mm cartridge and happier users than we have. Perhaps the present would have been better and the future brighter as well.

When digital imaging was in its infancy, my intuition told me the endless changes and technology dependence made it unacceptable for preservation. I always felt, if it’s obvious to me, surely it will become obvious to everyone soon. I was wrong.

In 2000 the Census decision was handed down by Congress, and 1 thought to myself, finally the US Government has established hybrid as THE preservation strategy. Someone said: Census has come to it’s senses. Wrong again.

The ink wasn’t dry on the directive and NARA had given SDSC big bucks to develop a digital preservation system. Well, after spending millions of taxpayer dollars, they produced one. The XML preservation system. It requires migration of the original digital file format to XML-based formats. Again before the ink was dry, the National Academy of Sciences said: “The use of an XML document format does not solve the problem of format obsolescence, and it would be inappropriate to rely on ,a migration strategy alone for preservation. In addition, conversion to XML is a migration, with all the intrinsic risks of approximations, inaccuracies, and errors. XML cannot, therefore, be considered as an alternative to saving the original data objects in their original data types”.

NAS saying XML is just another digital file format doomed for obsolescence is correct, but their solution of saving the original digital file formats may be more problematic than transferring to XML. The fact is neither solution makes sense.

Then there’s the PDF crowd. What’s going on? It’s no secret that all the digital preservation advocates promote their own special interests. The one that will put money in their pocket.

As you might expect, I and all microfilmers have been accused for years of promoting old fashioned microfilm because it’s the only way we know how to make a living.

to be with President Bush in Florida when the planes hit the World Trade towers. I was asked to accompany the President on Air Force One. While in route to Nebraska, I typed a number of e-mail letters to his wife, family and friends. I knew the letters would become treasured documents for my children and grandchildren, so I printed them out on paper”.

What did he accomplish? Well let me describe it by using digital techie talk. The documents were migrated from a proprietary digital file format to an “infrastructure independent format”, free from the constraints of proprietary software and hardware. That file format is commonly called paper.

Why is it that an average person using a computer can determine irreplaceable documents must be printed out in the people’s language and all the so called IT expects can't? I think you can answer the question.

Just follow the money.

Another bunch of IT baloney is the "Born Digital” phrase. I, and most people on this planet, type documents on a computer keyboard and they are displayed in human readable form on a monitor. They are “Born Analogue”, just like they were when we used a typewriter, their original form was analogue then and it IS analogue now, and they should be stored analogue. This simple fact should be obvious to any information management expert.

A few years ago, at an FbLA meeting, a well known microfilm executive said: “Russ, you may be right, but just because your right doesn't mean you’ll win. All the real money is bet on a digital solution”. Reading between the lines, he was really saying: Russ, give up, you don’t have a snowballs chance in hell of stopping the digital train. Where is Superman when you need him.

Why does the digit crowd use intimidating tactics?

What’s really on their minds?

“Hmmm. These microfilm people are a threat to the IT digital agenda, I’d better try to stop them by belittling microfilm and the people promoting it. That should work because film has been around a long time and many people don’t like to use microfilm. People are into new technology. I’ll try to convince users that these microfilmers are just a bunch of gray haired, old “has beens” that can’t keep up with modern ways of doing things.”

Lately, after receiving the “living in the past” pitch so many times, I have been asking these technocrats to send me their birth, marriage, military discharge documents, and other irreplaceable personal records. I’ll scan them at no charge, bum them on long life “Gold” CD ROM and return it to them.

Then I’ll shred the originals. So far I’ve had no takers. That one’s like Rugby, it sorts the men from the boys. Too bad there isn’t a way to sort con artists from honest people.

Here’s a phrase you people misrepresenting digital can chew on.

NO TECHNOLOGY DEPENDENT SYSTEM IS ACCEPTABLE FOR PRESERVATION, PERIOD. At the Electronic Record Preservation hearing in Washington DC on July 8, 2003, the Subcommittee Chairman, Congressman Adam PTA of Florida said: “On 9-111 happened

Guess that describes what’s wrong with our World today.

Most people don’t fight the awesome power of big money, they roll over and try to somehow grab some of the money.

The microfilm exec, was right in one respect, piles of money have been spent to produce a digital archive, but guess what, no digital archive.

It’s fun to watch the PDF crowd shoot holes in the XML solution and vice versa. It reminds me of a guy I worked for, years ago, in France. He kept trying to convince me the entire world would speak French someday. Nothing has changed, the IT big guns now run around saying: the entire world will speak digital someday. We have to find a way to inject some humour into this never ending debate. I can see it now, the children of tomorrow in reading class.

The letter A is written as: 00110011 or whatever it’s 8 bit ASCII code equivalent is. I think I’m supposed to know that.

Oh well, the King’s English, or is it the Queen’s English, is over 500 years old, a hell of lot older than microfilm, it must be time for a replacement. Hey, how come an American can understand an Englishman? The answer is: the American version of English was developed before the ITers were bom.

If it were invented today, it would be proprietary. Not to worry though, Bill Gates will gladly sell you a proprietary software license to translate it to Winglish. And they say Government is trying to control our lives.

Russ Burkel, President, Analogue Imaging rburkel@juno.com

New Managing Director announced by Gave Tab The appointment of a new managing director has been announced by Cave Tab pic, the specialists in providing document management solutions, using techniques ranging from high density storage to software and scanning services.

Newly appointed to the position is Mr Ian Keers OBE who was previously the company’s sales and marketing director.

Speaking on his new appointment, Mr. Keers said “I am particularly pleased to be taking the helm at Cave Tab pic at a significant time in the company’s development. We have recently made heavy investment in hardware, software and personnel to enable us to offer an advanced service in all aspects of electronic document management. We can offer a full spectrum of service including document scanning, storage and electronic file tracking using internet access and are now in a position to offer solutions to the greatest of challenges in document management.

Ian Keers was a member of the Territorial Army for 27 years and took particular interest in the Army Cadet Force. For the final 6 years of his TA service he was Commandant of the Feicestershire and Northamptonshire Force and is now Flonorary Colonel of the Feicestershire, Northamptonshire and Rutland Regiment.

His services to the Cadet Force movement were recognised in the 1998 New Years Honours List when he was awarded the OBE and he is currently a Deputy Lieutenant of Northamptonshire. In his spare time he takes a keen interest in classic cars and is currently chairman of the Mercedes Benz Drivers’ Club.

Following service in the Royal Air Force, Ian Keers joined the company almost thirty years ago, initially as a sales representative in Yorkshire and the North East. He was made sales director in 1986 and took additional responsibility for marketing in 1990.

Fe a tu re d K e y n o te E-mail Rules: M inim izing Risk, M axim izing Value Presented by Randolph Kahn, co-author of 'E-m ail Rules The corporate e-mail system is increasingly at the center of today's critical business issues. Walk away with not only a better understanding of your customer's e-mail challenges, but a new perspective on how you should respond to this issue internally.

W h o S h o u ld A tte n d : Senior Level Executives, Production & Technical M anagers, Sales & M arketing Professionals of: Service Companies, In-house Service Operations, Systems Integrators, VARs, VADs, Consultants, and providers of technology products and services.

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Married with two grown-up children, Ian Keers lives in Creaton in Northamptonshire.

Contact for more information: Ian Keers, OBE, Cave Tab pic, 1 Sovereign Court, Round Spinney, Northampton NN3 8RH Tel: 01604 798540 Fax: 01604 798524

No Other Conference is More Focused on Your Success The AIIM Service Com pany Executive Forum (November 6-8, 2003— San Francico, CA) is the only conference specifically focused on helping service companies build profits through Business Process Outsourcing. This high-level conference provides the unique opportunity for you, your management team and peers to discuss business challenges and trends, gain insights from industry experts, strengthen business and partner relationships and stay abreast of technologies, services and opportunities.

The Forum includes 3 focused tracks to benefit your entire management team: MANAGEMENT INSIGHTS TRACK (sample sessions) Is Your Strategic Direction Clear?

Looking Ahead - Where is this Industry Headed?

SALES & MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES TRACK (sample sessions) Is Regulatory Compliance a Sales Opportunity?

Commodity vs. Value Added Selling

CDIA+ Training Available at the Forum

PRODUCTION & TECHNICAL CHALLENGES TRACK (sample sessions) Define, Manage & Measure Customer Requirements Production Performance & Quality Control The Forum will be held at the "Pedate P7otel in San Francisco, CA. Conveniently located in the heart of downtown, it is one of San Francisco's most luxurious and historic hotels.

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Rates are £35 ($50) per insertion with a limit of 25 words. Each additional 25 words or fraction are £35 ($50). There is an additional £10 ($15) charge for the use of Box number. For display (boxed) ads add £20 ($30). To place a classified ad, send copy to Micrographics Marketing Ltd, 65 Winchester Drive, Burbage, Leic LE10 2BA UK, or fax it to +44 (0) 24 7638 2319 or Email it to sales@green-sheet.net.

I Ok SALE SPECIALS ENTER 3 150 - Silver Duplicator with 16 / 35mm heads, one owner-like new condition priced @ $8500 US EXTEK 2101 - Silver Duplicator - excellent condition 2 load magazines priced @ $4000 US MICROFILM - Processors, Cameras, Duplicators, ALLEN parts, service, refurbished equipment.

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Wholesale Prices WE BUY USED EQUIPMENT. Fax: 858 268 0592. Tel: 858 278 5501 (U.S.) WESTERN MICROGRAPHICS SYSTEMS. INC.

JOB VACANCY General Manager required for small scanning and microfilming bureau in West Sussex on the south coast of England, to oversee sales and administration. Previous experience within the industry a positive advantage.

I’loase send C.V. to:- Alan Austin Unit J. Rudford Industrial Estate, Ford, Arundel.

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METHYLENE BLUE TESTS: Required for all “archival” microfilm.

Meets all ANSI standards.

Special contract rates available.

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FICHE FACTORY at CONNECTICUT MICROGRAPHICS. Inc Cut Fiche now available - any size Diazo or Vesicular : Striped or Plain Tel: 1-203-838-1013 Fax: 1-203-853-3749 Email: peter@micrographics.com

PAGE 23

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FOR TOP QUALITY REFURBISHED Cameras, Duplicators, Reader-Printers and Scanners, please contact ALTER SYSTEMS, 713-995-1123 or Fax 713-995-4940 E-Mail jiinh@altesys.com He are SERIOUS about se n ln g your needs

MERCURY VISUALS Manchester, England Buyers & Sellers of “Second-User” Micrographic & Scanning Equipment Contact us for this months Special Offers!

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