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F u l l c o v e r a g e of t h e D o c u m e n t M a n a g e m e n t i n d u s t r y , in a ll it s f o r m s .

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Issue No. 30

ISSN 1476-3842

at Long Beach, California October 3-6, 2004 REVIEW p a g e s 1 2 < 1 4

inside this issue:-

General Micrographics

U.S. Roundup

Visit The Green Sheet Web Site at: www.green-sheet.net

i

UPDATE FOR THE GREEN SHEET!!

Beginning in the New Year, The Green Sheet is to receive a complete makeover.

We are hoping that there may also be another exciting announcement in the January/February issue (NO.31), - “Watch this Space” as they say.

- Ed.

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Due to a typing error the email address for Christine Falder o f DeepStore (Ref. Page 8, issue 29) was incorrect.

Please Note that the correct address is:

christincfaldcr@dccpstorc.co.uk \ ________________ __________________ J

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A d m in is tra tio n

Carole Nixon

Paul Ensor

The editorial content will be different because, although microfilm will remain an important ingredient, there will be more attention paid to the new technologies.

IMPORTANT CORRECTION

E ditor

Tim Nixon

Design

The appearance will be NEW - NEW graphics and NEW format.

/

THE G REEN SH EET

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F O R S U B S C R IP T IO N D E T A IL S P L E A S E C O N T A C T :

MICROGRAPHICS MARKETING LTD. 65 W in ch e ste r D rive, B urbage, Leicestershire LE10 2 BA, U nited K ingdom Tel: +44 (0) 24 7638 2328 Fax: +44 (0) 24 7638 2319 M obile: 0 7970 2 4 8146 U.K. E -m a il: gsinfo@ green-sheet.net U.S. E -m a il: M Ngreensheet@ aol.com V isit o u r Web S ite a t: w w w .g re e n -s h e e t.n e t

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX inalphabeticalorder Anacomp .............................................................................23 Bristol Microfilm ................................................................ 23 Dass Laboratories.............................................................. 23 DocuWa re ............................................................................ 15 DSS UK ..................................................................................5 Floro Int.............................................................................. 23 GB Products........................................................................ 22 Genus Group ......................................................... 7, 11, 17 GG B ak e r ............................................................................ 19 Gloscan ..................................................................................2 Indus..................................................................................... 4 Kodak ..................................................................................24 Mercury Visuals ..................................................................23 MicroVue Products .............................................................21 M 5TC ................................................................................... 23 nextScan ............................................................................. 20 OITUK .................................................................................. 19 Penny Imaging ................................................................... 23 Service, Sales and Products ............................................ 23 Solar Microfilm Equipment ............................................... 21 Trans Media Technology ................................................... 13 Upton Services ..................................................................... 3 Western Micrographics ..................................................... 23 Zeutschei .............................................................................. 9

“Tempus Fugit" Yes, how time flies.......it is now over a year since Upton Services purchased Visitek Imaging Systems. The Visitek range of duplicators has been developed over many years and therein is the proof of the pudding. Although some have tried to copy the Visitek range they have proved to be unreliable, so beware of copies! As succinctly observed by John Ruskin (1819-1900): “There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man’s lawful prey. ”

sold through distributors in the Americas and Asia and direct to Europe.

The small, specialized, team at Upton Services is extremely busy fulfilling orders for both existing and new clients all over the globe, still with that personal touch!

“This supposedly dying micrographic industry is keeping us busier than ever. If this is the decline, heaven help us if things start taking off again!!” says M.D. Bob Yewman.

“We believe the reason that these units have stood the test of time is due to the fact that they are so simple to operate, have virtually no maintenance requirement and are very competitively priced. Furthermore, our recently introduced model, the SM2500, has opened up new markets in the Graphic Arts and Printed Circuit Board industries”.

The acquisition of Visitek is a great addition to the existing Upton business supplying quality reconditioned Microfilm production equipment, (cameras, duplicators, processors etc.) for many years.

There is only one Visitek range of tried and tested quality products manufactured solely by Upton Services. The range is

Please visit our website at www.uptonservices.com or www.visitekusa.com. If you require any further information please contact us for a chat, we would be happy to answer any questions.

Contact: Bob Yewman on +44 (0)1656 881071

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FblA members review their strategy 2004 was a quiet year fo r the group; 2 0 0 5 promises to be a crucial one Following on from the meeting held in September (See report in issue 29 of The Green Sheet), the US Film-based Imaging Association met again during the ARMA conference to review achievements during 2004; discuss leadership, membership and revenues; and set goals for 2005. Mimicking the ancient mythological God Janus who could look backward and forward at the same time yielded both pluses and minuses.

base and incoming revenues. Overcoming this major problem was the major point of discussion at the ARMA meeting and at the aforementioned executive committee meeting held a month earlier.

The FblA is currently working on a paper that will offer microfilming guidelines to state governments. During the year this was held up because state needs and regulations are diverse and not easily amenable to one set of guidelines.

Expanding the membership base is considered essential to FblA’s survival and growth. Service bureaux appear to be natural candidates for membership; FblA is the only impartial advocate for their film-based businesses. But service company response has not reached expectations. However, FblA made a major pitch at the November SCEF and is hopeful it will have a better payoff than in the past.

Generally, until now, most states have followed a policy that records which must be retained 10 years or more should be kept on microfilm or paper, not entrusted to rapidly changing digital systems and media. In addition, localities are becoming more independent of states in terms of being dictated to as to requirements. This also has complicated the job of creating guidelines that could be presented in a single white paper.

(Ed. note: A list of state retention requirements is posted on FblA’s web site, www.fbia.org)

All attending members at the ARMA FblA general meeting and the prior month’s executive committee meeting agreed that the group needs closer liaison with AIIM, ARMA and other organisations. The aim is to expose attending members of these various groups to FblA and its mission and programmes since many of these attendees do not know of FblA or what it does. Then, after exposing them to FblA’s value, the job is to convert as many as possible to paid membership.

During the year, FblA had a booth presence at the major AIIM and ARMA expositions as well as the smaller Society of American Archivists, AIIM Service Company Executives Forum (SCEF), and regional ARMA chapter meetings.

Another problem spotlighted in 2004 was FblA leadership.

The original leadership of the group is now gone as these individuals have retired or left the industry. Most recently Ken Kopald resigned as chair of the executive committee; currently Peter Hovell and Urs Kopp are acting as co-chairs.

Mike Oris, who served as FblA’s paid staff executive in 2004, is continuing on at least through the 2005 AIIM show.

The bad news over the year has been a decline in overall paid membership and consequent drop in the group’s financial

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In addition, the group said that in 2005 it will place more emphasis on offering visible benefits to members, above and beyond general advocacy and promotion efforts. These may include updating and reprinting the Buyer’s Guide'with service bureau members added as sources. FblA is also seeking to come up with other benefits it can offer on a meagre operating budget.

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Expanding paid membership is the number one goal for 2005 and with it expanding FblA’s revenue stream and base. To fulfill those goals, FblA will exhibit at small shows in 2005 but not be a paid exhibitor at the major AIIM show, a decision based strictly on a cost-benefit basis. However, FblA is seeking to underwrite a well-known and respected speaker who, at the AIIM show, would make the case for film-based imaging as the heritage records medium. Another goal is to offer a canned presentation that members can use, as well as to work to get speakers for other shows.

Central to that will be co-ordinating efforts with other records management/storage associations and groups, inside and outside of the United States. The fact that the records storage business is growing 10-20°/o annually, coupled with growing recognition that digital systems may not provide the reliability needed for heritage storage, seems to offer great potential for FblA and the film-based industry.

image rotation

Gall or email for dealer nearest you. wu u.indususa.com salcs@imlusu8a.com tel 608-786-0300 fax 608-786-0786

Coming in 2005?

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Relating to financing, several executive committee members suggest that changing times dictate that FblA can no longer be self-funding as it was in its earlier days when large industry members annually subsidised FblA’s efforts through

a volume-based dues structure. They say the bottom up cash generation approach doesn’t work and that FbLA will have to go to organisations or individuals who have an interest in the long-term preservation of information - i.e. seek one-time grants from key industry players and/or foundations. The subject drew great interest but was tabled for further exploration.

N a tio n w id e

All in all, 2005 looks as if it will be an interesting but also crucial year for FbLA.

a n d s u p p lie r

ADM announces new European appointments

o f D ocum ent

AIM, the international association for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) has announced the appointment recently of its new Managing Director for Europe Atle Skjekkeland and its new Marketing Manager Justin Blades.

Atle who took up his new post on 1st June comes from Optimila AS based in Oslo, Norway, where he was a founding Partner of the company. Over the last four years at Optimila, Atle has developed a reputation as an industry consultant and as a recognised ECM trainer and leader of management development programmes, working in Scandinavia, Germany, Netherlands, USA and the United Kingdom. For the last two years he has delivered A11M Europe’s IM University Document Management programmes.

Mr Skjekkeland takes over the role of Managing Director from Roger Crumpton, who was Managing Director of AIM Europe and iTx Marketing Services (prior to its acquisition by AIM in 2002) for some 15 years. In a long planned move, Roger is taking time out to pursue some personal and family commitments.

“We are extremely pleased to have Atle Skjekkeland join the AIM team as Managing Director for European Operations,” said AIM President John F. Mancini. “Organisations are looking for education that will help them better understand how document and content technologies can be applied to improve their business processes and make them more competitive. Atle brings a wealth of experience to ADM that is directly relevant to helping users deploy these technologies. He will bring together users, suppliers, and the channel to help this industry reach its full potential.”

AIM is also delighted to welcome Justin Blades as Marketing Manager for AIM Europe. Justin, who joined AIM following over three years as Marketing Manager for a construction company based out in Copenhagen, is working alongside Atle Skjekkeland to assist in the strategic growth of AIM’s services.

“We are seeking to align ourselves ever more closely with what the industry wants and in terms of what we deliver to the end user,” said Justin. “This means I am looking more closely at training and events and, together with Atle, am formulating our marketing strategy on a global level for the forthcoming year.”

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For further information on AIIM please visit unvw.aiim.org.

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SUNRISE SELECTS ANACOMP AS UK DISTRIBUTOR Sunrise Imaging, an industry leader in high-performance microfilm scanning products, which convert microfilm archives to digital storage, is pleased to announce the appointment of Anacomp Ltd, a global provider of information outsourcing, maintenance support, imaging and print solutions, as an Authorised Reseller for Sunrise scanning equipment in the UK. The agreement allows Anacomp to sell Sunrise products in the UK and forms part of a joint PanEuropean agreement to promote Sunrise products throughout Europe. Anacomp, with their solid reputation for equipment maintenance, will offer added value to customers, with support services delivered through an international parts infrastructure and Sunrise accredited engineers. The announcement coincides with the launch of the new Sunrise S2500 multi-functional production fdm scanner, yet another land mark product from a long line of superior production scanners.

“Having worked with Anacomp for many years in other parts of Europe, it made sense for Sunrise to partner with this vibrant and i n n o v a t i v e organisation here in the UK. The partnership with Anacomp brings a well known and respected name to our UK sales channel. The wealth of experience and knowledge they possess in micrographic e q u i p m e n t ,

maintenance and production markets means that Sunrise customers can have total confidence in the service Anacomp delivers. Anacomp are an ideal and obvious partner to take Sunrise forward into 2005”, said Steven Godfrey, Director, Sunrise Imaging (EMEA) Limited. Simon Stammers, Sales Director, Anacomp Ltd added, “We are delighted with the new agreement and are confident selling the Sunrise range in the UK and Europe can add value to our current market offering”.

Millions of pages of documents and data are turned into microfiche and microfilm on a daily basis through Anacomp manufactured equipment on-site or in Anacomp data centres.

Over the years Anacomp have also built up a steady network of UK partners who manage customer records in warehouse and bureaux environments. “Sunrise Scanners will further enhance the Anacomp offering by providing customers and partners with the means to deliver managed storage and retrieval solutions which meet operational and compliance requirements. Many of our partners and end customers will benefit from this kind of system”, Frank Roche, Executive Vice President and General Manager, International, said. “The knowledge and experience possessed by Anacomp in the field of micrographic digitisation will provide Sunrise with an excellent support structure in Europe”.

Sunrise Imaging, a pioneer in the microfilm scanning industry with the largest installed base in the world, recently successfully announced the introduction of the “SunRise S2500 Multi Functional production scanner ft the Product Exchange Program”. Anacomp will be utilising the program offering customers the opportunity to part exchange certain older scanning models for the new SunRise 2500 (launched in August 2004) to help customers get maximum value for money and return on investment (ROI).

Visit www.anacomp.com

Controlling Image Quality at the Point of Capture Digital Check issues Check 21 W hite Paper Digital Check Corporation announced the availability of a new White Paper on Check 21: Controlling Image Quality at the Point of Capture. The genesis for the White Paper was Digital Check’s participation in the FSTC (Financial Services Technology Consortium) Image Quality and Usability Assurance Initiative (http://www.fstc.org/projects/imagequality-phase-1/).

“Check 21 became law in the U.S.A. on October 28 of this year, and allows an image of a check (cheque) to be passed through the clearing system in place of the physical paper cheque. Effectively the truncating (image creation) organisation is responsible for creating an acceptable image.

The recently completed first phase of the FSTC’s Initiative identifies the image metrics that can be utilised to measure the cheque image quality and usability,” said Tom Anderson, President of Digital Check Corporation. “The White Paper discusses these metrics and how to ensure that image quality requirements can be satisfied at the point of capture in a distributed environment.

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“The earlier, in the transaction cycle, that the physical cheque can be converted to an image, the greater the gains offered by cheque truncation,” Mr. Anderson continued. “For banks embarking on Check 21 this is the Teller Window, but we foresee this being pushed back into companies’ accounts receivables departments as well. Careful scanner selection can assure item-by-item image quality control in a timely manner at the point of image capture. Obtaining a clear, good quality image on the first pass gives the lowest unit capture costs, makes subsequent processing easier and - most important from the bank’s perspective - eliminates liability. The worst case scenario occurs if the paper cheque has been destroyed.

If, in this case, the paying bank doesn’t accept the image because of inferior quality and a printed substitute cheque is not legible, the bank of deposit is liable for the amount of the cheque.”

A copy o f the White Paper: Controlling Image Quality at the Point o f Capture can be downloaded from Digital Check’s website at: http://www.digitalcheck.com/iqa

ATI announces its Largest Conversion Project to Date O v e r 1 6 0 m illio n im a g e s c o n v e r t e d f r o m m ic r o f ilm t o d ig it a l in 4 0 d a y s w i t h W ic k s a n d W ils o n R S - 3 0 0 S c a n n e r s ATI’s largest conversion project, it is scheduled for an on-time and successful completion.

ATI, Inc. announced in October that it had signed a significant, time-sensitive document conversion deal with a large international company to convert over 160 million images from 16mm microfilm to digital image within 40 days.

Not only is this ATI’s largest conversion project to date, this is one of the largest conversion projects ever to be completed in such a limited amount of time.

In order to immediately respond to a project of this proportion, ATI was able to acquire all of the necessary equipment and increase its production staff on short notice to accommodate a 24/7, 4-shift conversion schedule.

The project is being completed in conjunction with ATI’s business partner AmCad at ATI’s main production facility in Milpitas, California. The 10,000 square foot production facility met all the client’s physical, technical and security requirements, enabling ATI to begin the conversion process within 48 hours of signing the contract.

In less than 24 hours, ATI was able to deploy 12 high speed Wicks and Wilson RS-300 microfilm scanners. Wicks and Wilson is the industry leader in high volume production film scanning solutions and is now enabling ATI to scan and convert over 5 million images per day, assuring excellent image quality across a variety of different film. While this is

Founded in 1979, ATI is a leading provider of document and media conversion services as well as content management and workflow software applications and solutions. Specialising in on- and off-site conversion of paper, microfilm, microfiche, aperture cards, large-scale drawings, books and more, ATI claims to provide its clients with the best possible service at the lowest total cost of ownership.

Contact:atisales@ati-imaging.com or call 800 536-2212 or Wicks and Wilson Ltd, Morse Rd, Basingstoke, RG22 6PQ UK Tel: +44 (0)1256 842211 Fax: +44 (0)1256 840997 Web: www.ivwl.co.uk Incorporating:-

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Records Management (RM) Findability, Searchability or Discovery - which is the most appropriate term?

By Laurie Varendorff When one is attempting to locate information, no matter where it is stored or for what reason, it is said that “not to be able to find the information (which is known to have been captured), is worse than never having captured the information in the first place.”

term in the first place, and how do I get to the one or several hits that are of interest and value to me. If you follow Paula Dragutsky’s advice at his “Findability” website you may succeed in your quest.

But what are we doing in RM?

What is Discovery? The act of discovering something; or a productive insight; or (law) compulsory pretrial disclosure of documents relevant to a case; enables one side in a litigation to elicit information from the other side concerning the facts in the case. Source: http://www.ondook.com.

It is my belief, and that of many in this RM profession, that Functional File Classification or Functional Business Process/Activity Classification is the best answer, currently, to be able to capture information and to find it in the future.

What is Searchability? I was unable to locate a definition at Onelook and its 6,153,428 words in 972 dictionaries indexed but there is a website by Paula Dragutsky at http://www.searchability.com/siteinformation.htm which addresses the subject that is basically a methodology to help people use search engines to do research on the web.

Functional File Classification has been in vogue in Australia (predominately in government agencies at all levels) for some time, and was a concept promoted as part of the 1996 Australian Standards for Records Management, AS4390 parts 1 ft 2. The concept is also a part of the International Standard for Records Management ISO 15489 Parts 1 ft 2 as item 4.2.2.

What is Findability? Again I was unable to locate a definition at Onelook but it referred me to -Find-Discover; or determine the existence, presence, or fact of or after a calculation, investigation, experiment, survey, or study or come upon after searching; find the location of something that was missed or lost; and again a productive insight. There are a number of excellent websites dedicated to improved finding aids for use on the internet e.g. http://findability.org/ and http://www.boxesandarrows.com/ they are worth a visit.

Business Activity Classification, 4.2.3 Vocabulary incorporating 4.2.3.1 Vocabulary Controls - list of authorised headings and 4.2.3.3 Thesaurus then 4.3.4 Classification, including all of its related components.

I will express my preference and state that I prefer the term “Findability” for use with the www and RM. After attending the ARMA 2004 Conference in Long Beach, California from 3rd to 5th October, I was very much “Records Managemented Out” and even more so after spending 27 hours on an aeroplane on my way back to Perth. Not being one to give up easily, I began reading all of the session papers from the events that I had been unable to attend.

After this exercise I began thinking what wonderful tools we have at our disposal in the RM profession for findability. With the use of tools such as e.g. Taxonomy; - thesauri, thesaurus or thesauruses; -ontology; - functional thesauri; - business classification schemes; - information architecture; metadata; - metatags; - controlled vocabularies; naming system, etc we have, (or should have) an advantage over our non-RM colleagues, in never losing the data or information received and, hopefully, indexed when it enters, is created within, or leaves our organisations.

Have you ever tried entering a misspelt word in Google (or any of the major search engines) to see what you receive as a result? Give it at a go and be prepared to be surprised at what you get back. In my example I entered the misspelt wording of “plam pilot” complete with the “to restrict my search results” and received 1,380 hits in only 0.45 seconds, but Google did ask “Did you mean to search for: palm pilot”, yes I did, but there were all of these misspelt results out there in www land. When I agreed with Google that plam was a misspelling and clicked on the correction I receive 1,300,000 hits for palm pilot.

But which one did I want? -if any. Why did I search on the

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The use of a functional classification, vocabulary control (VC) and hierarchical listing of terminology, consistent across an organisation, provides other benefits with the potential for automatic linking of files to retention and disposition schedules. This last process is something that is driving the RM industry in the USA and elsewhere with the realisation that the appropriate disposal of records based on an approved or legislated timeframe is, or could be the saviour in addressing an organisation’s responsibility in the court room or with legislative oversight bodies.

I am offering a presentation entitled “Why the Americans are beating us at Records Management!” on the 26th November here in Perth, based on my assessment of the situation on the ground in the RM arena in the USA. Copies of this presentation are available online at http://www.congresswest.com.au/records/.

In a “real life RM environment” we have a different set of requirements to that of locating information from the internet.

When the CEO of an organisation, or for that matter any supervisor or a client, is on the phone requesting details from a file, we want that specific file and or document in question NOW while the person is on the phone, not one of 1 million+ hits that will take us hours or even days to decipher, which, sadly, is the case in some organisations.

In my past life I was a distributor for an RM software product, and in training sessions I demonstrated the ability of'the software to find the file, and only the file that I wished to locate using a functional drill down approach.

By bringing up the ‘Function’ applicable, even if we are guessing as to the Function, and selecting the most appropriate one of twenty, thirty or even forty Functions (if one has over fifty Functions, then normally something is wrong) then seeing the list of second level ‘Activity

Descriptors’ applicable for that Function, and then selecting the appropriate Activity Descriptor, we can drill down to the fde we require. With this process we can then limit the selection down to the third level of the title of the fde, the ‘Subject Descriptors’ or, as I prefer, ‘Topic’ or ‘Transaction’ which are a subset of that selected Activity Descriptor. Once we get to this point we have a list of the fourth level terms which in 99.9% of systems is a free text field. This is where we find the file, and I mean only the file related to our requirements and query.

Trust me, IT WORKS if we have done our homework at the start and applied a ‘Controlled Vocabulary’ across the organisation, plus implemented a ‘Functional Business Process/Activity Scheme’ from day one and before we implemented our Electronic Records Management System (ERMS). This findability provides for improved efficiency and the provision of answers to queries in a timely manner.

What do we mean by a Controlled Vocabulary?

A simple example: If our ERMS did not have a controlled vocabulary the following may apply: Let’s look at the following words; Petrol, Gas, Diesel, Mentholated Spirits, Ethanol, Methanol Flydrogen, Petroleum, Compressed Natural Gas, Oil, Crude Oil, Fossil Fuels and possibly more terms. If we were searching for a possible fuel type and we asked for one or some of these terms in our search criteria we would find files related to certain types of fuel dependent on our breadth of query and may miss out on some important results.

If on the other hand we had implemented a controlled vocabulary the following would apply: If we had listed the word Fuel as our preferred term, and had advised the use of the term as the preferred term, we would then have this scenario.

Fuel: Definition or Scope Note: A material with potential energy which can be transferred into kinetic energy, or as heat or mechanical work. Non-solid fuels include oil and gas (both fuel types have myriad varieties). Solid fuels include coal, wood and peat. All these types of fuel are combustable, they create fire and heat.

Use for: Petrol, Gas, Diesel, Mentholated Spirits, Ethanol, Methanol Hydrogen, Petroleum, Compressed Natural Gas, Oil, Crude Oil, Fossil Fuels.

Alternatively one could define Fuel as being: Fuel = Petrol etc, etc.

Petrol etc, etc = Fuel Under this scenario, no matter if one searched on Petrol, Oil, Diesel etc., one would find Fuel and, alternatively, if one searched on Fuel, one would locate information on Petrol, Gas, Diesel, Mentholated Spirits, Ethanol, Methanol Hydrogen, Petroleum, Compressed Natural Gas, Oil, Crude Oil, Fossil Fuels.

I trust that this may assist in converting any sceptics of the Functional approach to file classification and the use of controlled vocabularies.

Happy RMing, Laurie Varendorff ARM A

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Controlling the e-mail mountain David Aspinall, M anaging Director of Datum Solutions Ltd, continues to take a look at som e of the problem s created by the increasing use of the e-mail.

Part Two: - What can we do about it?

In the last issue we looked at the growth of the e-mail mountain and concluded that the system was a victim of its own success. E-mail volumes have risen rapidly, and processes and procedures in many organisations have been allowed to develop in parallel with existing computer and manual systems, with little or no effort to integrate.

We could introduce email filters.

E-mail filters can perform a number of effective functions such as the suppression of SPAM messages and the detection of viruses. They can be installed at different levels - by ISPs, at server level or on an individual PC. Such filters can work in a number of different ways:

In considering ways of dealing with the problem we have to consider which e-mails we don’t need to keep, which e-mails we do have to keep, how long we have to keep them and how we are going to remove those that are no longer required.

There is little help in this process from the e-mail itself.

Frequently it has little more information in it than a memo.

We know:

• White list filters work on the assumption that all email is bad and check each message coming in against a list of senders that are “approved”. Typically, if an unknown sender is found then the e-mail is quarantined and a reply is sent requiring further confirmation from the original sender. E-mails from automatic systems do not respond and, after a given period of time, these e-mails are dropped.

• Black list filters work in reverse and assume all email coming to it is good unless proved otherwise. E-mails are checked against lists of known spammers and filtered accordingly.

• Content filters block e-mails that contain elements that the filter doesn’t like. This could be words or phrases, such as “free” or “special offer”, it could be the use of a special colour or it may be some special formatting such as all capital letters. The potential problem with simple content filters is that they can throw out valid e-mails with the spam.

• Hybrid filters are a combination of the above. Some organisations employ one type of filter on the server, with another on their client. One sophisticated approach included under this banner is Bayesian filtering which is a content filter using statistical techniques rather than just content. The technique learns over time what the user does and does not want to receive based on the actions he or she takes on the email received. Bayesian filtering builds a black list, plus identifies spam content that is unique to the user. Accuracy is claimed to be better than 99.5°/o with no false rejections.

-

Who it is supposed to be from, It has been sent to us, It is date and time stamped and, It has a header line which is probably not relevant to the way we would choose to file it.

So, in short, e-mails are not well structured. Many would argue that they are unstructured.

We cannot treat those we wish to keep as a whole; their retention requirements, review requirements and removal requirements will depend on the content of the e-mail. For example, normal communications relating to the buying and selling of goods in the UK are required to be kept for six years plus the current year, those relating to employee pay are required to be kept for three years plus current and those relating to pensions may be required to be kept for very many years. Hence, our e-mail retention rules need to parallel the organisation’s general records retention rules. You don’t think your organisation has any? - I suggest you get somebody working on a records management policy as a matter of urgency, or the problem could get a lot worse than just the email mountain!

But coming back to the e-mail problem, let’s first consider some technical solutions: We could try to channel incoming messages away from email.

This may, on the surface seem counter-productive but, where we have many requests of a given nature, this approach is very effective. Consider the purchasing of goods from an internet retailer. In order to make a purchase it is necessary to complete an electronic form. If the form is not completed correctly it isn’t sent. We are seeing similar forms being used for all sorts of different enquiries. They have the advantage of requiring the sender to provide the minimum information which the recipient requires in order to process that request.

This has the advantage of avoiding an e-mail ping pong game and also ensures that the purpose of the message, the way it is to be processed and its retention and disposal rules are usually known from the outset. Such requests can automatically be processed by line of business systems or be fed into appropriate workflow and EDRM systems if manual intervention is required.

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We could make use of shared mailboxes Special mailboxes such as info@abc.com, sales@abc.com or FOIrequests@abc.gov.uk all serve useful purposes. From the sender’s point of view they imply what the mailbox is to be used for and they also imply that there will be organisational ownership, rather than individual ownership, in any response.

On the other hand, the organisation can give responsibility for answering such queries to a suitable group, responsibility for the management of the mailbox can be assigned, that group can forward requests that are not part of the remit of the mailbox and all emails and responses can then be treated as the same record type for the purpose of record keeping and eventual removal.

We could use e-mail archiving systems Specialist e-mail archiving systems are designed for the archiving and retrieval of unstructured information. They are, to a certain extent, frowned upon from a records management perspective for two main reasons: • They do not enforce the sort of classification scheme that one would expect in a records management system. Some

simpler systems do not even provide effective facilities for the disposal of information no longer required.

• They are another source to be examined, another island of information to be viewed rather than having a single point of reference for all archived material.

However, there are a number of more sophisticated products coming to market such as Enterprise Vault® from KVS which was acquired by Veritas in August 2004. KVS was identified

by Gartner Research in November 2003 as the lead player in this marketplace. Such products do provide retention rules and deletion facilities, but this functionality cannot totally replace the rigour found in a fully configured ERMS such as those complying with the UK TNA2002 specifications or USA DOD 1505.2. However, they are much simpler to implement.

We could introduce an EDRM or ERM systems ,ERM (Electronic Records Management) systems will provide archive functionality for all document types. A fully configured EDRM (Electronic Document and Records Management System) will typically provide additional facilities to handle documents through their working life from creation or ingestion into the system, version control and collaborative working where necessary and workflow capabilities to aid processing before archiving considerations.

Such systems cannot be easily introduced without appropriate analysis of associated business functions, the identification of associated record keeping requirements, generation of a corporate classification scheme (or at least that part of the scheme which covers the business functions effected), introduction of a records retention and disposal schedule and, finally, publication of associated policies and procedures with corporate approval.

Such systems usually have an interface with all Microsoft Office applications, including Outlook, so that emails and other document types can be filed and retrieved directly from the application.

The technical solutions we adopt will very much depend on the size, complexity and regulations controlling our organisation. In public service and financial service organisations there has been increased demands for accountability and openness. Other businesses such as pharmaceuticals have been highly regulated for years.

Regardless, we will need to decide our business policy and procedures and then select appropriate technologies. A staged approach could be necessary; although we may well have a strong business case for installing EDRM throughout the organisation, this is likely to take a considerable effort and, in the meantime, we would have to live with an e-mail mountain that’s out of control! So we could be better off selecting a short term tactical approach combined with a longer term strategic solution.

So setting some priorities an organisation could decide to do something like this: Immediately!

• Ensure that a virus checker is installed.

• Implement some form of spam filter.

• Introduce a procedure for the examination of e-mail messages that have been quarantined.

• Define an interim e-mail policy and ensure that all staff is aware of it. This could even specify that, as an interim measure, staff should print out e-mails that are likely to form relevant business records and save them in a paper filing system!

Medium Term • Carry out a macro review of e-mail usage to determine in which departments or business process areas the majority of the problems lie.

• If not already in place, start a business process review to consider the areas identified in the step above which should identify current process limitations and record keeping requirements and shortcomings.

• Consider utilising techniques such as shared mailboxes to identify associated business communications in key areas and consider separately archiving these mailboxes as a temporaiy expedient.

• Establish a written e-mail policy, educate employees about the policy and enforce policy and retention guidelines, including discipline procedures.

• Consider the impact that technology changes such as the use of instant messaging and VOIP (voice over internet protocol) are likely to have on the organisation. Such changes could impact on any medium to long term purchasing decisions.

• Define a long term strategy for the handling of e-mails relative to other record types and start putting together a longer term business case for a strategic solution.

Longer Term • The last point above will determine the combination of technical and procedural approaches selected.

• In a large organisation, it is unlikely that just one approach would be adopted. Investment in electronic forms and interfaces, with line of business applications, could well be the best approach for strategic business processes. General tools such as e-mail archiving may well be sufficient for peripheral activities.

• E-mail archiving systems require less effort to install then EDRM systems but do not provide the same level of structure and control. Hence decisions have to be made as to whether the organisation can afford to develop a dual policy approach depending on business process or if only one approach can afford to be adopted.

In Conclusion E-mail needs to be considered as part of the total information paradigm rather than in isolation. A coherent information management policy is required rather than an e-mail policy.

No information source can be treated in isolation if organisations are to succeed in leveraging maximum benefit from their most precious asset - the knowledge within.

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

Brand new formatted Web Site from The Microfilm Shop

www.microfilm.com including a V ie w comprehensive equipment section 11

LONG BEACH • A GOOD CHOICE FOG ADM Record attendance and record exhibition space. Electronic RM drew the crowds.

by Mitch Badler, US Editor ARMA International’s 49th annual conference and exposition proved that less can be more. Held in attractive, ocean-front Long Beach, California (30 miles south of Los Angeles), a second-tier convention city, the event drew its biggest attendance numbers in many years, beating out totals achieved in much larger cities.

Nearly 5,000 attendees filled the educational sessions and explored the wares of 236 exhibitors who occupied 135,000 square feet of booth space. Of the attendees, more than 1,200 were expo-only visitors who joined 3,500+ conference registrants. It was ARMA’s largest expo in both the number of exhibitors and the size of the exhibit floor. The number of conference registrants was also a record for ARMA, and the association quickly claimed ARMA 2004 as the premier records and information management event.

Attendance built over the four days of the conference and expo. Opening day, traditionally a show’s best, was a beautiful 78°F Sunday and, consequently, slow at the show. Many Southern California people evidently chose to stay home, go to the beach, etc. and decided to come to ARMA on subsequent week days.

Attendees appeared to follow previous patterns, being mostly middle-level records management “implementers” rather than RM policy makers. As always, however, some of the latter were present.

Electronic records management the big draw Following worldwide trends, the most popular offerings educational sessions and expo exhibits - were related to managing electronic records and information, including issues regarding electronic discovery. A special pre-conference educational session, co-sponsored by ARMA and AIIM International, attracted more than 230 records management and information technology professionals. This marked the first time ARMA and AIIM have partnered on an educational offering.

The interest in electronic records management was also evidenced in the debut of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNLA) Pavilion on ARMA’s expo floor. SNLA co­ located its Data Management Forum’s educational Information Lifecycle Management Solutions conference in conjunction with the expo. The latter hosted 17 booths, representing ILM conference sponsors.

Booths related directly or indirectly to film-based imaging products, systems and services continued to be in a distinct minority. There was some decline from last year but it was modest. About 18 exhibitors featured micrographics-related products or services, slightly more than half in a significant way, and the remainder in some tangential relation to

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micrographics. Examples of the latter include storage organisations that host security microfilms for clients and outsourcing service firms that include film capture and/or conversion among their services.

The fact that ARMA is a much smaller show than AIIM, its principal rival, has some advantages for exhibitors. There are fewer total exhibitors and no truly giant booths so it is easier for visitors to get around and talk to exhibitors. This is especially true in the declining film-based imaging world.

Micrographics/imaging products at ARMA Despite the small number of micrographics-related exhibitors, there were some new products shown - and in some case debuted - at ARMA. These included a talking debut (but no product on the floor) of the Zeutschel OP 500 Archive Writer, e-Image Data’s newest item, the ScanPro 500, a portable microfilm retrieval system from EyeCom, Mekel Technology’s newest production microfilm scanner with fiche capabilities, and a new digital microfilm viewer scanner from ST-Imaging.

All are described below. Among the exhibitors with significant product displays of their current lines were: Agfa-SourceCorp Microfilm Distribution Services (MDS), which featured the Agfa microfilm lines for which it is the national distributor in the United States. MDS is a division of SourceCorp., a major business services outsourcing firm.

Microfilm services are among its offerings.

Visit fyiglover@earthlink.net ALOS Micrographics, whose acquisition of Connecticut Micrographics was announced after the show, featured the Z46, its newest but previously-announced, desktop film scanner, as well as its reader-printers, planetary cameras and a variety of rollfilm and universal carriers that can be used with most manufacturers’ reader-printers. ALOS emphasized the strength of its dealer line and stressed that analogue sales continue strong, even as dealers seek more digital products.

Visit www.alosusa.com Anacomp, which specialises in comprehensive information outsourcing services, also distributes a variety of other companies’ micrographics products, such as the MicroVue reader lines. These are in addition to its own (no longer manufactured) XFP 2000 and IDP 1600 COM platforms^and integrated Image Express scan-to-film system. All of these were described at the expo as well as the company’s microfilm services, multi-vendor maintenance support, and doc-Harbor Web Presentment service.

Visit www.anacomp.com Canon USA this year showed its MS800 digital scannerreader, the latest in its line of microfilm scanner-readers. The company also offers the DR 5060F, a digital scanner system with a built-in microfilm backup system. However, Canon

again devoted most of its exhibit space to document scanners and copiers, for which it holds major market share in the United States.

Visit www.usa.canon.com,www.canon.co.uk or www.canoneurope.com Crowley Micrographics discussed the Zeutschel Archive Writer OP 500 for which it will be the North American distributor and which it expects to have available for installation in Januaiy-Februaiy 2005. The unit will accept all standard digital formats for translation onto 16mm and 35mm rollfilm. Resolution is projected to be up to 11520 x 7200 pixels and production speed of up to 15 images/minute.

Output can be black and white or colour film. Crowley, which is the owner of the Houston-Fearless processor line, said it is also building a new processor for the OP 500 that will allow 'switching from Cibachrome to black and white. Designed for the colour archive unit, it will be built on the H-F LabMaster line. The company is also working on a series of processors for specialty uses, such as for Kodak VNF film, which has been discontinued by Kodak.

The company also displayed the newest of its Mekel production-volume microfilm scanners. Last year it showed its Model 625 line of rollfilm scanners. This year it added a production model that accommodates microfiche. Crowley also said it plans a series of major announcements early in 2005 at the CeBIT and A1IM shows.

Visit www.crowleymicrographics.com Eastman Kodak demonstrated and/or discussed its wide line of imaging products. In the micrographics area it accented the Kodak i7300 scanner, the i9600 Archive Writer, and the 3000DSV Digital Scanner-Printer. The i7300 retrieves images from legacy microfilm and Kodak Reference Archive Media and converts the images into digital files from which they can be printed, faxed or e-mailed. The Kodak i9600 series of 16mm Archive Writers are now powered by new application

software. This includes i9600 Application software, Electronic Microimager Software, and a Kodak Software Value Pack. The 3000DSV Digital Scanner-Printer is a relatively low-volume scanner-printer for on-demand needs that delivers documents in digital and paper formats. It is sold as an upgrade from an analogue reader-printer or a first generation scanner.

Kodak also introduced Kodak Imagelink HQ microfilm, an upgrade of its HQ microfilm line. The company says it is a minor formulation change that maintains all existing features while providing improved raw stock film keeping, less process sensitivity and greater system latitude. It has lower Dmin (minimum density) and equal or higher resolution than prior HQ film.

The company also showed its i30/i40 low-end paper scanners and gave booth space to partnering firms that showed how they are using Kodak products.

Visit www.kodak.com/go/docimaging e-ImageData showed its new ScanPro 500, a desktop microfilm scanner that provides full image viewing and scanning for engineering-size drawings (A-E size) contained in aperture cards and newspapers on microfilm. ScanPro 500 prints out on l l â&#x20AC;?x l7 â&#x20AC;?. The unit uses high resolution, wide angle lenses to capture the full image and allows zooming in on details. In addition to printing out onto paper, the unit allows e-mailing and network distribution from a linked PC. Film carriers are available for fiche, 16/3 5mm rollfilm and cartridge film (3M). There is also a combination carrier that will handle fiche/aperture cards, rollfilm and cartridge film.

The basic ScanPro 500 comes with one high resolution Rodenstock lens, fiche/aperture card carrier, scanning software and a connecting cable for PC. The unit operates with Windows 98SE, 2000 and XP operating systems.

Shipments began in November.

Visit www.e-imagedata.com

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EyeCOM debuted its Portable Microfilm Retrieval System (PMRS), based on a film scanning tablet scanning system for 48X fiche. It is derived from the basic ImageMouse system.

PMRS is intended for field investigative use. A user can go in with the “mouse” and tablet, a small microfilm capture device, a small paper scanner and small printer, all of which can be carried in a small rolling case that can be taken onto an airplane. The complete package, which includes a lap top PC, will cost about US$6,000.

EyeCom also introduced a new series of cheque encoders as well as other banking solutions. In addition, EyeCom debuted Scan ft View II, a new version of its paper and film scanning and retrieval system, a low-to-mid volume imaging package. It uses paper scanners to capture and file images to an electronic database; software to index, file and retrieve the images; and a modernised ImageMouse film scanning system.

The company also said it is selling the Fuji M Drive line under its own name as the EyeCom I Drive.

Visit www.eyecom.com

automatically clears the stored images for the next user.

Librarians or other users have complete control over the functions and can de-activate them as needed.

Visit www.stimaging.com Among other exhibitors noting they could provide micrographics services among their offerings were service firms ImageMax (www.imagemax.com) and Scanning America (www.scanningamerica.com) as well as storage giants Iron Mountain (www.ironmoutain.com) and Underground Vaults and Storage (www.uvsinc.com).

How did exhibitors rate the show?

They liked it. The response of exhibitors to the 2004 ARMA show was almost universally very positive.

Responding to a Green Sheet survey, 88°/o rated the expo as either “excellent” or “good”, with only 12°/o regarding it as “fair”. No one thought it a “poor” show. This was considerably better than in 2003 in Boston. The improved feeling about the show correlated with a majority impression that the level of attendance was better than in prior years.

nextScan showed its Eclipse, Phoenix and Mercury production volume microfilm scanners. The Eclipse is a 16/35mm rollfilm scanner can scan up to 300 24X pages at 200 dpi. It creates gray scale and bitonal images simultaneously. The unit is designed to run 24 hours per day and boasts 20 second high speed rewind, auto focus, and straight line film loading. It works with nextScan’s own Fusion software that is said to minimise operator set up time by providing a base setup for the operator.

Exhibitors also said that the largest category of booth visitors was users and potential users, followed closely by service bureau executives. Both are groups exhibitors want to see.

Consultants came in third. Visitor interest topic number one, by a clear margin, was the products and services offered by the exhibitors. This year literature collectors and accidental visitors who wandered into an unintended booth were considerably less evident than in prior years.

Phoenix is a 2-in-l scanner for rollfilm and microfiche and was designed to give new life to older SunRise Imaging units.

It is designed to fit within the housing of the older SunRise units and uses new camera technology to provide sharper images with better edge definition. It also uses Fusion software and can scan rollfilm at 220 pages per minute or microfiche at 125 pages per minute.

Once again customers who stopped by say “hello” were also a considerable group. This, too, is a group exhibitors want to see.

One exhibitor told The Green Sheet, “We felt a few local and international dealers and industry associates were worth the cost of exhibiting.” The limited size of the show was such that all respondents said they were able to spend sufficient time with visitors.

The new mid-range Mercury 16/3 5mm rollfilm scanner does 120 pages per minute at 200 dpi on 24X reduction and is offered for users on tighter budgets. It creates gray scale and bitonal images without reducing output speed. USB connectivity allows it to work with almost any PC. Mercury also uses Fusion software.

Visit www.nextscan.com

Comparisons with other shows As usual, because ARMA and AIIM are the two major venues for micrographics exhibitors in North America, we asked the survey participants to rate the shows against each other and also against other exhibitor opportunities. Three quarters of the respondents felt that this year ARMA was better for them than AIIM, while 25% thought the two shows were equal. No one regarded ARMA as inferior.

S-T Imaging introduced its ST200 Digital Microfilm ViewerScanner, which was debuted at the American Library Association show. Promoted as “computer concentric” microfilm equipment, the compact desktop unit is aimed at the library rather than the business market, though it also has obvious uses in the latter as well. The first model scans directly from 16mm and 35mm rollfilm, rather than from a projected image like other library viewer-scanners. A second model that adds microfiche capability will ship shortly.

However, a majority of respondents said that small vertical shows were the most productive of all. Although ARMA may disagree with the designation, several exhibitors put ARMA in the small vertical show category, but they rated it as a very good producer. Ranked almost as high was the American Library Association show. Other shows getting multiple mentions were those of the Society o f American Archivists, the Special Libraries Association, and NAGARA.

In the United States the ST200 is also distributed by Anacomp, Fleritage Quest in the genealogy market, ProQuest and UMI in the library markets. In Europe Solar Microfilm is the distributor.

The ST200 scans a full 18”x24” tabloid page in a single pass, crops images, views negative film in positive mode, and can rotate images from 90-360°. It can also zoom out to full page or zoom in to read small text with a single lens. It has automatic focus and can scan at resolutions of up to 2700 dpi.

It includes ScanWrite software and Adobe Photoshop Elements. At the end of each session, the software

In regard to expos in general, some exhibitors groused about “paying major show exhibition fees” to ARMA for a show “with a relatively low attendance.”

The Green Sheet always looks at repeat exhibition plans as a good indicator of a show’s value. Well over 80% of this year’s micrographics-related exhibitors plan to exhibit at ARMA’s golden 50th anniversary conference in Chicago, Sept. 18-21, 2005. Most of the remainder have not made up their minds yet.

Only one exhibitor said it will not exhibit in 2005.

Many of the regular conference presentations are available on­ line at www.arma.org/conference/sessions.

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DocuWare simplifies International compliance DocuWare AG has introduced additional functions for records management with the latest version of its document management system, DocuWare 4.6a. The new product version provides for greater control over retention schedules, along with enhanced audit trails of document access.

Control over records retention and document access is of grow ing im portance. While the discipline of Records Management originally referred to administration of paper records, it is now playing an increasingly important role in electronic document management. Legal provisions on i retention of business records have been substantially tightened in the U.S., based on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act signed into law in 2002. In Europe preparations are under way to enhance existing record retention practices and harmonise them on a European level. The Basel II Directives, for example, will complement national financial sector provisions in ensuring consistent risk-management practices and accountability, for which formalised record retention policies and secure document control will be vital.

In addition to automating document capture and storing records in a non-alterable format, DocuWare 4.6a brings extended functions that enable simple administration of retention schedules and selective monitoring of document access.

Managing retention schedules Legal provisions envisage different retention schedules for a range of document types within the management of business records. The requirements vary depending on the document type and what is to happen with the records after the retention period expires. W ith DocuW are’s CONTENTFOLDER, a virtual folder can be created containing all electronically filed documents that are subject to specific retention requirements. These documents are selected for retention based on specifically chosen index criteria. When opening the folder, it will display all docum ents that correspond to these criteria.

Usually the person responsible for records management will implement the necessary disposition rules at this point. If the process for elimination is initiated, there are several options to choose from: deleting the documents or migrating them into ‘old’ or offline archives.

The second important aspect of records management focuses on controlling document access. DocuWare functions ensure that only authorised people can access certain documents and that their access is monitored. With version 4.6a the most diverse authorisations can be attributed to groups or individuals, even in terms of single document properties, index or filing criteria, and comprehensive audit trails can be established.

Centrally storing e-mails Records management explicitly includes the filing of e-mails.

Compared to most e-mail archiving solutions, DocuWare’s advantage is that e-mails are not stored in separate archives and hence no extra file cabinets have to be created. With DocuWare, e-mail can be filed together with other types of documents in the central document pool, consistently categorised to reflect entire business transactions.

Jurgen Biffar, Board Member of DocuWare AG, and as such responsible for Product and Finances: “With DocuWare 4.6a, enterprises receive a state-of-the-art document management system that complies with international legal provisions on records management at low costs and organisational effort.”

Founded in 1988, DocuWare is a pioneer in electronic filing.

Today the company ranks among the worldwide leading software companies for integrated document management solutions with more than 5,500 installations and tens of thousands of users in over 50 countries. The software is distributed by over 400 resellers creating a worldwide independent authorised reseller network of over 1000 DocuWare experts.

DocuWare AG is head-quartered in Germering near Munich, Germany. International offices include Weybridge, UK, supporting UK and Ireland, and New York, USA, supporting the North, Central and South American markets.

Contact: Patricia Herion, DocuWare AG, Therese-GiehsePlatz 2, 82110 Germering, Germany Tel: +49.89.89 44 33-54, Fax: +49.89.8 41 99 66 or Email: patricia.herion@docuware.com Tel: UK: +44.1932.26 84 55 USA: +1.845.563 9045 Email: infoline@docuware.com

DocuWare Corp.

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Integrated Document Management ■ Better Customer Service ■ Reduced Costs ■ More Knowledge Integrate all of your documents with your business processes. Pave the way for your company's success - just like tens of thousands of users in 50 countries have done before you. Integrated Document Management by DocuWare.

Dxukare'

DICOM Group acquires Neurascript On 25 October 2004 DICOM Group pic, a global leader in the Information Capture market, announced the acquisition of Neurascript Limited, a leading worldwide provider of Information Capture tools. Neurascript is being purchased for a total consideration of up to £8.3m, £2.4m payable on completion, £0.6m payable on the first anniversary and a further contingent variable deferred consideration of up to £5.3m, payable in cash, depending on the achievement of certain targets.

Said Richard Brierton, Managing Director of Neurascript “Neurascript has created scalable and robust tools that streamline the transformation of documents and forms into electronic information. Our technology complements the industry-leading products of Kofax, DICOM Group’s US-based product development and marketing centre. We look forward to working together to expand the pervasiveness of our Information Capture technology among our worldwide partners and customers.”

Headquartered in Cambridge, UK, Neurascript develops software tools that automate the recognition, extraction and indexing of information from business documents and forms.

The integration of Neurascript’s tools will strengthen DICOM Group’s portfolio of Information Capture technologies that maximise the performance of business processes, and provide a flexible development platform to pursue large enterprise opportunities.

For the financial year to 31 March 2004, Neurascript reported sales of £1.3m and a net profit of £43,000. As at end of March 2004, the company had net assets of £376,000, including net cash of £433,000.

Said Arnold von Biiren, Chief Executive Officer, DICOM Group: “The acquisition of Neurascript is a natural and strategic extension of a long­ standing relationship. We consider Neurascript’s high-end Information Capture tools to be core technology, especially as modules for our Ascent application platform. He added, “The Neurascript development team will be fully retained and strengthens our leadership position in the Information Capture market by providing significant expertise in the development of enterprise solutions.”

DICOM Group pic claims to be the global leader in the Information Capture market. Information Capture comprises products and services that enhance professional applications by collecting paper documents, forms and e-documents, transforming them into accurate, retrievable information, and delivering it into business applications and databases. It is primarily used to increase office efficiency and to improve customer satisfaction.

DICOM Group’s core competence is development and marketing of Information Capture products and services.

Through authorised partners and its own sales and service organisation, DICOM Group has helped blue-chip enterprises in more than 60 countries to accomplish superior office efficiency. DICOM Group supports its channels and customers with some 800 information capture specialists, being directly present in 27 countries in Europe, the USA, Asia and Australia.

For further information visit: www.dicom.co.uk

Making the most of Central London office space A 50°/o reduction in document storage space is being reported

by ConocoPhillips at its Portman Street premises in London, as a direct result of the use of a Link 51 mobile storage system.

The installation has had a dramatic effect on storage efficiency for the organisation which holds a vast range of documents and associated material - primarily for administrative and legal purposes.

ConocoPhillips is a major international integrated energy company active in more than 40 countries. In the UK, ConocoPhillips markets fuels under the Jet brand name through a network of distributors and some 550 dealer-operated filling stations.

“The Link 51 units have been installed in a number of locations on the 5th and 6th floors of the building which comprises our European headquarters,” says UK Facilities Project Manager, Chris Cleaver. “Apart from the mobile facility, this includes extensive runs of static shelving which provide up to seven storage levels primarily for manual and

book storage in the tax library. Additionally, we also now have a number of tamber-fronted units from Link 51 which accommodate an extensive range of documentation and file boxes.”

It is with the mobile storage facility, however, that the major space saving benefit is noted. Because the system requires only one aisle to be open at any given time, the rest of the Link 51 mobile facility can be kept in a closed position. Backto-back shelving runs are simply rolled along low profile tracks set into a raised timber floor with the use of an ergonomically designed handwheel - this also features a locking system for added security. The six moveable units each provide six shelf heights of Link 51’s Clearstor shelving system and have replaced a large number of cupboards with dramatic improvements in both capacity and accessibility.

With increasing pressure on office accommodation, particularly in central London, the need to ensure that space efficiency is maximised is clearly paramount. An increasing number of organisations are turning to the Link 51 mobile concept in this context and the facility at ConocoPhillips is an excellent example.

Contact: Dave Buller, Link 51 (Storage Products), Link House, Halesfield 6, Telford, Shropshire TF7 4LN, UK. Tel: 01384 472543 Fax: 01952 683977 Email: enquiries@link51.co.uk or visit www.link51.co.uk

Archiving system frees space and saves tim e for Bournem outh based IFA A document archiving system from Kendata Peripherals is gradually freeing up office space for Bournemouth-based independent financial adviser (IFA) Eveleigh a Huckle, while at the same time enabling the firm to speed up its document retrieval process and enhance its service to clients.

Eveleigh ft Huckle (E£tH), which became a division of iimia pic during 2003, has been providing pensions and investment advice to individuals and organisations since 1983. Like all IFAs, the firm is tightly regulated by the Financial Services Authority and is obliged to store all client correspondence and related documents for at least seven years.

In fact, EHH has chosen to keep many of its documents indefinitely. However, according to IT manager Ffyona Cole, this prudent approach does create serious issues with document storage and retrieval.

“We have hundreds of clients ranging from private individuals to large corporate groups,” she said, “and over the years, we have accumulated many thousands of important documents.

The amount of space required to store them has continued to increase, but so too has our need for office space as the business has expanded.”

Another ongoing issue was the tendency for staff to remove files and hold on to them for a long time, thus making it difficult for others to locate and access the information in them.

Archiving system frees space and saves time

In the light of these problems, EftH started looking at the possibility of installing a document archiving system so that the documents could be scanned and stored electronically, allowing the paper originals to be shipped to an off­ site storage facility.

“One supplier recommended a workflow system that could be added on to our client database,” said Ffyona Cole, “but we decided that workflow just wouldn’t have been worth the investment for an organisation of our size. Our problem was space and access rather than working procedures.”

Meanwhile, EEtH’s IT maintenance company, Kenda Electronic Systems, had made Ffyona aware of the Information Archive Server system produced by its sister company, Kendata Peripherals.

“On evaluating this system, we could immediately see that it was much better suited to our needs,” Ffyona said. “Not only would it allow us to create electronic images of original paper documents, but it could also automatically store a range of other files, including e-mails, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and PDF files.”

The Kendata system was duly installed at EHH, and the firm is now scanning in all new documents and gradually working back through its older ‘inactive’ files. Once a document has been scanned into the system, an image of the original can be quickly retrieved over the E£tH intranet by anyone with the necessary security clearance.

Residing on the EHH server, Kendata’s simple browser-based software enables staff to search for folder or file names or for keywords in the content of the document itself, so client information is now much more accessible. “When a client comes in, we don’t have to go and retrieve a physical file from the storeroom, but instead we can get instant access to it from the nearest PC,” said Ffyona.

This ease of retrieval has proved to be much more efficient for EftH. In a paper-based system, no matter how efficient the system and how conscientious the filing staff, correcting misfiling creates a paper chase that can be both immensely frustrating and often veiy time consuming. Now in the event of misfiling, with a couple of clicks the offending document can be retrieved and correctly filed.

As well as saving staff time and improving client service in this way, the Kendata system is also helping to free up office space at E&H as more and more documents are scanned and shipped off-site.

“Inevitably there was some initial reluctance from staff when faced with such a big change to their working methods,” commented Ffyona Cole, “but as soon as they tried it, they had very complimentary things to say - especially about the ease of document retrieval.”

Contact: Ken Fletcher, Kendata Peripherals Ltd. Tel: +44 (0)23 8086 9922 Fax: +44 (0)23 8086 0800 Email: kenf@kenda.co.uk

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British Businesses urged to shred all Confidential Information Alarming research shows threat to UK security identity theft costs the UK £1.3 billion a year Fellowes, a leading supplier of personal and office paper shredders, has collaborated with credit reference agency, Experian, on research that reveals shocking results about UK binning habits putting personal and corporate identities at risk of identity fraud.

“Firstly people should regularly comb through their bank and credit card statements for signs of fraud. With some credit card thefts it has been months, or even years, between the time criminals have accessed the credit card information and the time they actually started using it.

The research, published recently, exposes the risk to consumers’ identity by both themselves and by companies discarding personal information that has not been shredded.

“Secondly, when moving people should ensure that all their post is re-directed.

Identity fraud is costing the UK £1.3 billion a year. Bin raiding - the process of searching through bins to obtain personal financial information to commit fraud - is growing at a phenomenal rate in the UK. Bin raiders in the UK can be paid up to £5 by fraudsters for documents like bank statements or utility bills. Last year alone, over 70,000 people became victims of identity fraud.

To find out the extent to which people are vulnerable to this new form of crime, Experian, in partnership with Camden Borough Council, commissioned an independent data protection research company to analyse the waste from hundreds of domestic households and commercial premises.

Alarming findings.

One in ten households discarded a full credit card number, expiry date and signature, which is enough for someone to commit fraud.

The most shocking findings come from the contents of waste from commercial organisations. A significant majority of companies discarded personal and financial information, about themselves or their customers, with little or no attempt to destroy them.

Tyron Hill, Senior European Product Manager from Fellowes comments, “We are very concerned about these research results.

Crooks simply go through rubbish bins looking for personal and financial details. Consumers’ identities are being put at risk by companies’ carelessness when disposing documents. Quite frankly, the best thing we can buy for our loved ones for Christmas or birthdays is a shredder!”

During their analysis, researchers found a mortgage broker discarded completed mortgage applications with full financial details of its clients; a theatrical agent discarded the names, addresses and mobile phone numbers of film stars; a travel agent discarded photocopies of passports with passport numbers, dates of birth and photos; an architect threw away full detailed plans of NHS hospitals and a surgery discarded full medical records of its patients.

Results of the commercial waste analysis also include the following numbers: 44% threw away whole invoices, 41% threw away financial invoices with no attempt made at destruction, 21% threw away details of their customers without making any attempt at destruction and 32% threw away official documents with no attempt made at destruction.

Preventing identity theft “Here are three key things people can do to prevent this kind of theft,” explains Tyron Hill.

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“Most importantly of all, invest in a paper shredder and ensure any documents that contain details of financial transactions or personal information are shredded before they reach the rubbish bin.”

What to shred It isn’t just information such as credit card and statements that need to be disposed of carefully.

bank

Receipts from bank cash machines could yield enough information for crooks to forge dummy bankcards.

Pre-approved credit card application forms, which often have a person’s details automatically filled in, can also by used criminals to secure new cards.

Fellowes have published an essential guide to help consumers understand how identity theft occurs and how you can stop it from happening to you. The practical guide also includes useful tips on document retention - what do you need to keep and for how long, and advice on simple ways to protect your identity.

Consumers can call free phone number 00 800 1810 1810 td obtain the guide.

Easy shredding It might sound like an obvious thing, but it is amazing the number of people in the UK who run the risk of losing their identity simply because they were unaware of the consequences of insecure disposal.

Shredders, like Fellowes P70CM, are small, simple to use, fast and ideal for use in the home. For some people spending £50 on a shredder could prove to be the best investment they make this year.

Fellowes, the world’s leading shredder company, was first to introduce the personal shredder over 20 years ago and now has a full range of machines for home and office use. For personal shredders, users can chose a range of different machines which include the new stylish P70CM and the PS70-2 CD which can shred paper and CD’s.

Commercial organisations can invest in a number of Fellowes shredders. The Powershred range featuring a heavy-duty motor allowing continuous use, can shred paper, paperclips, CDS and even floppy discs.

Call Fellowes on 01302 836 836for further information or visit www.fellowesshredders.com.

A Great Year for OITUK LTD The 4th and 5th November were the dates for the OITUK Users’ Conference 2004, which took place at the high tech offices of IBM’s conference facility at Warwick, UK. The evening proceedings took place in the medieval splendour of Warwick Castle.

Paul Negus, MD of the Genus Group expressed delight at the performance of OITUK. Revenues had increased by 41°/o over the first year. Critically, sales to the NHS sector had grown considerably following the development of a medical record specific vertical application. The OITUK-developed system was described by Dianne Nixon who has responsibility for records management at the world famous Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge. In less than eight months since go live, approximately 1000 medical staff and secretaries in 63 departments have been trained on the system. Nearly 200,000 new records have been generated mainly from a library of nearly 800 standard electronic templates.

Needless to say, although one expects the fireworks at night at this time of year (November 5th is Guy Fawkes Night in the UK - he tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament many years ago!), most of the business pyrotechnics took place at IBM leaving the jollity at Warwick Castle for the evening.

As an example of use within the commercial sector, Kim Richards of Stemcor described the OITUK solution, developed in partnership with Stemcor.

The event marked the 10th Anniversary of OITUK’s relationship with OIT Inc. of State College, Pennsylvania and also marked the end of OITUK’s first full year as a member of the Genus Group.

Vijay Magon - Technical Director of OITUK presented the first year performance results, and outlined the growth strategy over the next three years. The key message was OITUK’s plans for developments in customer solutions and the internal team, to meet increasingly sophisticated customer requirements.

OITUK is committed to building its team and product portfolio and two new members of staff were welcomed at this year’s Conference. Of particular note was the announcement of a new Electronic Records Management application, to partner OITUK’s existing strong document management capability.

This is designed to be compliant with the advanced UK National Archive (TNA) 2002 specification.

I s n ’ t it t i m e

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The event was also attended by Scott Buchart, President of OIT Inc. and Ron Prichard, COO who endorsed the unique partnership with OITUK, and described the continued expansion of sales, products and strategic directions at OIT Inc. Steve Emrick of BMI, in Nashville, came over to the UK to describe how the OIT solution is helping BMI streamline its business.

With further developments in integrated e-Forms, Knowledge Management, and the promise of a smaller/simpler entry level product, OITUK are certainly a player in the EDRM market who are worth watching.

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US. Roundup Workers Compensation Agency outsources A state Workers’ Compensation Agency, a client of service provider SourceCorp, decided that the most practical way to modernise its claims processing and information storage systems, was to go outside for scanning, indexing and transfer of its backfiles, in tandem with the conversion to electronic images of the agency’s daily mail. Going outside made sense because it was a statewide initiative involving many offices.

SourceCorp’s solution involved setting up a document conversion facility in the state’s southern tier to process the 25 million paper backfile as well as 40,000 items per day of dayforward work. SourceCorp ships papers from customer sites around the state, then prepares, scans, indexes and transmits this information back to the client via two T1 lines.

The agency is very satisfied with the solution. It reduces time for claims processing and thus reduces labour processing costs significantly. Equally important to these benefits for state taxpayers is the fact that it increases the level of service the agency can provide to claimants.

ALOS purchases Connecticut Micrographics ALOS Micrographics Corp. acquired the products and operations of Connecticut Micrographics (CMI). The purchase, effective November 1, will expand ALOS’s product offerings in both hardware and accessories and, according to the company, open opportunities into other segments of the micrographics industry. CMI’s operations are moving from Norwalk, Connecticut to ALOS’s HQ in Montgomery, New York north of New York City.

CMI, in business since 1978, has manufactured a variety of micrographics equipment such as fiche duplicators (ammonia and non-ammonia based), planetary cameras, roll film readers, microfilm retrieval devices, fiche cutters and numbering devices. The company also has a spare parts business and an internet information system.

Micrographics, said, “This transfer (of business) to ALOS will well serve the on-going needs of our customers, and provide them with the service and support they expect.”

ALOS Micrographics was established in 1977 and is a whollyowned subsidiary of Switzerland-based ALOS Holding AG. It is part of the ALOS group with additional subsidiaries in Switzerland and Germany. The company is a leading manufacturer and distributor of micrographics equipment.

The equipment is sold under the ALOS brand as well as part of OEM agreements with Eastman Kodak, Minolta, and Canon.

ALOS distributes its products worldwide through an independent dealer network, currently consisting of about 350 dealers, and through its OEM partners’ channels.

ANSI approves ARMA standard for managing E-records.

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved ARMA International’s new standard for managing electronic messages as records. It will be ANSI/ARMA9-2004. The standard addresses the managerial issues surrounding the creation, maintenance and disposition of e-mail messages within the context of a formal records management programme. The association expects the new standard will be a valuable resource for anyone responsible for managing email and other electronic messages.

Anacomp names new president, partners with EDS on $34 million subcontract.

Anacomp’s board of directors named William R. Pesch president and chief operating officer effective November 15.

Pesch reports to CEO Jeff Cramer, who had been CEO and president. While dropping the title of president, Cramer remains CEO and a member of the board. Pesch previously held senior management positions with A.B. Dick, Bell 8t Howell and Siemens Building Technologies. He was founder and president of WRP Associates, an interim executive leadership firm.

Anacomp also announced that it is one of five team subcontracting partners with EDS on a seven-year $34 million subcontract from Sytel Corp. The contract is for services to support the Office of Records Services of the US Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. The new solution developed by EDS with aid from Anacomp, DevTechnology, EMC, EZ-Gov and Sapient, will make a vast array of information instantly nextScan Scanners for Rollfilm or Microfiche available to the government Eclipse: Lightning fast production level rollfilm scanning at 300 pages per minute. agency. Anacomp will provide document imaging services.

Mercury: Rollfilm scanning at 120 pages per m inute fo r conversion on a tight budget.

Phoenix: A product designed to f i t zvithin the housing o f older SunRise scanners.

LASON execs talk to The .. Wall

Urs Kopp, president of ALOS Micrographics, said, “We are excited about the synergies between the two companies’ product lines and the opportunities this will offer.”

Peter Hovell, president and owner of Connecticut

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Trevor Brown, chief marketing officer, and Douglas Kearney, chief financial officer, LASON, recently sat for a lengthy interview with The Wall Street Transcript on changes in the company as well as trends and driving factors in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.

US. Roundup LASON, which was founded in 1985 as a micrographics and then imaging service bureau, now provides integrated data and document management services in the BPO industry, especially to the healthcare, financial services and accounting services markets.

Brown claimed that today’s customers “want a one-stop shop and they want an integrated solution that includes several discreet services”. He noted that LASON will do front-end preparation at its US and Canadian centres, or on a client’s premises and then, if appropriate, moves images through high-speed networks to offshore operations in India, China and Mexico for further processing. LASON does micrographic and digital input and also transitions clients into the digital world by converting legacy microfilm systems.

Kearney said there is a fundamental shift to digital services, which is still an immature market so he sees digital applications growing annually in the 10-20% range. These are offset in part by declines in analogue services. Since the company, which was reorganised in 2001 and 2002 and recapitalized in 2004, is privately held, it does not issue public financial statements, but Kearney said that it is generating a profit on a net income basis. He also said that there are no specific plans to become a public company again “but obviously it’s something that certainly is a possibility.”

Iron Mountain has announced the acquisition of the assets of Ottawa-based Proshred Security International and eight of its Canadian franchises. Proshred is a leading Canadian shredding services firm. The acquisition puts Iron Mountain into five additional Canadian markets to augment the 12 it was in before.

Separately, Iron Mountain also announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire Connected Corporation in a cash transaction valued at approximately $US 117 million.

Connected is a US software technology and market leader in the protection, archiving and recoveiy of distributed data.

Bob Brennan, former CEO of Connected, was appointed by Iron Mountain to the newly-created position of President, North America. In this post he will be responsible for Iron Mountain’s two largest business units in North America: records management and off-site data protection. His selection ended an independent executive search for the position.

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The Wall Street Transcript publishes interviews verbatim and the complete 2,500 word interview is available free on-line at hftp ://w ww.twst.co m/ceos/ZA C601.htm Iron Mountain acquisitions

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The KODAK i200 Scanners eelebrate 2nd birthday!

Low-Volume Production Scanners are still setting industry benchmarks.

Kodak has announced the birthday of its best-selling Document Scanner Series, which was first launched on 16th October, 2002 - exactly two years ago.

The i200’s were the first scanners in their price range to provide real innovation to the low-volume scanning market, but still, in these times of dynamic markets and changing environments, the KODAK i200 Series stands for “state of the art” scanners with outstanding features.

• DIN-A3 colour scanning with an 150 sheet auto-feeder for manual and batch feeding.

• A dockable flatbed accessory for scanning bound documents.

• The built-in PerfectPage Image processing as standard for outstanding readability of low contrast documents.

• 3D-Ultrasonic Multi Feed Detection to detect double feeds reliably.

• Sure-Path Paper handling to feed documents with care.

• Simultaneous output of Bitonal and Colour or grayscale images • Standard Firewire connection to the host computer The KODAK i200 Series paved the way for the modem document capture in colour, being the first machines to provide colour scanning at the same speed as bitonal scanning.

Today the i200 Series still sets a benchmark for the scanning industry, with the recent introduction of Kodak’s renowned iThresholding technology in the i280 model.

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“We are pleased with the i200 Series of scanners and its success in this dynamic market place. Customers all over Europe have tested the i200 Scanners and decided to purchase the innovative and reliable Kodak products against all competition” said Hauke Fast, Business Development Manager EAMER Region.

The KODAK i200 Series offers three versions for different customer needs, starting from 6,500 Euros (recommended list price).

Optional extras available include the dockable flatbed and a document imprinter.

In conjunction with the i200 Series, Kodak offers a worry-free PerformancePlus service contract. This gives customers a premium service at an affordable price, such as on-site manufacturer's service Et support, consumables, 3 year total cover and a free 4th year if no call-out is required in the first three years. If the scanner cannot be fixed, a new replacement unit will be supplied.

For more information visit: www.kodak.com Docupen enters “Guinness World Records” book Planon System Solutions, Inc., a leading provider of scanning hardware and software, announced that ‘Guinness World Records’ has certified its DocuPen as the lightest A4 document scanner in the World and will feature it in the 2005 edition.

Planon’s DocuPen R700 is the World’s smallest fully portable, full-page scanner that is the size of a pen and weighs just 1.75 ounces and is only 8.5 inches long. While traditional pen scanners only read individual lines of text and are unable to scan graphics, the DocuPen scans an entire page of text and graphics in just four seconds and stores up to 100 pages in its 2 megabytes of flash memory.

“Planon is very proud to have ‘Guinness World Records’ recognise the DocuPen as the world’s lightest document scanner,” said Doug Verkaik, President of Planon System Solutions, Inc. “I look forward to seeing the DocuPen alongside all the other record breakers in the book.”

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“As the world advances technologically, it is important that we recognize the innovations that influence how people conduct their daily business. We are pleased tp acknowledge the DocuPen as the lightest document scanner,” said David Hawksett, Science Et Technology Editor at ‘Guinness World Records’.

In conjunction with ‘Guinness World Records’, Planon will give away a limited number of copies of the 50th edition of the ‘Guinness World Records’ to each person who purchases any DocuPen product on the company’s web site or with selected retailers.

For more information visit: www.planon.com

Rates are €35 ($50) per insertion with a lim it 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 tim@green-sheet.net.

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The new KODAK *30 and *40 Scanners. The perfect match for all kinds of small-office applications. Good news Âť for all: agents, consultants, doctors, lawyers, managers, pharmacists, professionals, secretaries, teachers...

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