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Digital imaging, or scanning, is an increasingly popular strategy for dealing
with records. Imaging can be a useful tool for managing your records and
enhancing workflow, but is not always a good idea. Anyone thinking of imaging
their records needs to keep a number of issues in mind.
The key distinction to make when considering imaging is between access and
preservation. Imaging is not inexpensive, and it is not a good strategy for
long-term preservation of records. It is almost never a good idea unless it is
used to create better access to the records.
- What is imaging?
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- Digital imaging, also referred to as scanning, is a process whereby a
document is converted from print to a computer-readable format. You can think of
the digitized version as a photocopy that can be viewed on your computer.
Digital images produced by scanning are equivalent to the photographs one
produces with digital cameras: they can be transmitted, displayed, and printed,
but as images they are not text searchable. In order to make searchable
electronic text, one must either transcribe records by typing or perform optical
character recognition (OCR) processes upon digital images following scanning.
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- Digital images can be stored on a variety of media, such as computer
disks, CD-ROMs, magnetic tape, and computer servers.
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- Why would I image records?
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- Imaging's great strength is as a means of providing access to records. When
records need to be accessed frequently, or from remote locations, or
simultaneously by multiple users, imaging can be a cost effective means of
distributing and rendering information. However, if full-text searching is
required, the cost will go up considerably, due both to the OCR process itself
and increased quality-checking.
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- Imaging records to save on storage costs
is not likely to be cost-effective. Always do a full cost analysis before
attempting this.
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- An analysis is also needed before imaging records that
need to be retained for a long period of time, or which are to be retained
permanently. The greatest issue with managing all electronic information is
technological obsolescence. This means that the technology used to read imaged
records is advancing at a great rate, and the systems needed to read your
records may become obsolete long before your need for the records has ended. In
this case you will need to plan - and budget - for periodic migrations of the
records to newer systems. The digital images will also need to be reformatted as
the software used to create and read the digital images becomes obsolete.
Additionally, for records with permanent retention periods, the original paper
documents may need to be maintained as well as the digital images.
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- What is the imaging process?
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- The following is a quick overview of the imaging process:
- Document arrangement: Prior to scanning, determine the units of organization
for the digital copies. Will they mimic the arrangement of the original prints,
or will they, for example, be separated from one source item into multiple
documents? Document imaging is not always a one (source)-to-one (digital copy)
process.
- Document preparation: Physically clean up the documents to prepare them for
scanning (remove staples, unfold paper, remove extraneous documents, etc.)
- Identification: Consider what metadata (information about the documents)
will need to be made to describe and organize the digital copies. This metadata
may be recorded in something as simple as a file-naming convention or as complex
as an indexing system. The primary reason for scanning is to facilitate access
to the records. Batch-level scanning cannot automatically associate a group of
digital images with a specific document or record. Plan for additional
procedures and possibly systems to generate appropriate metadata to accompany
digital images.
- Technical considerations: Decide on file formats and other technical requirements for scanning, storage, and
retrieval.
- Scan.
- Quality control: Images must be inspected to ensure that they are of good
enough quality for the purpose for which they are being scanned. In some cases,
every image must be reviewed, in others only a sampling.
- Storage: Digital files and digital media are inherently fragile. Regardless
of storage media used, it is always prudent to make multiple copies and,
ideally, to store the copies in separate locations-even during the production
phase of a scanning project.
- Disposition of source documents: Discard the paper once you are satisfied
that the electronic records are accurate. The scanned images are generally an
acceptable substitute for the original documents provided the scanning process
has been carefully documented and the authenticity of the records ensured, and
the images themselves are useable. Your scanning workflow must have safeguards
and controls built into it so that you can assert to the satisfaction of a court
that the images reproduced from the system are accurate representations of the
original documents and that the information in the system has not been tampered
with.
- Migration, beyond storage: As discussed above, the greatest issue with
imaging is technological obsolescence. A plan for forward migration of digitally
imaged records must be put in place at the outset of the project and monitored
as long as the records exist. Digital records are as bound by retention
requirements as those in hard copy and failing to migrate records forward if
they are still within their required retention period can hurt your office in
the event of litigation or audit.
- How much does imaging cost?
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- As you might guess from the above, an imaging project is an expensive
undertaking. The actual scanning of the documents is the cheapest part of the
process. Preparing the documents prior to being scanned can easily account for
one-third of the project budget. And ensuring the records remain available over
time may be even more costly. For paper records, it can take many years for the
cost of scanning to catch up to the storage cost. The following table has cost
estimates for just the scanning step (which might not be the most expensive
part).
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| Cost per page (scanning only) |
Pages per box |
Cost per box |
Cost for one month of storage |
Cost for CD Burn |
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Offsite
$.09* |
3000 |
$270.00 |
$8.63 |
$0.00 |
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Others
$.25 |
3000 |
$750.00 |
$8.63 |
$25.00 | *
Includes 1 CD created for each box indexed
by document and customer and
long term storage media. Since scanned records must
be migrated forward with hardware and software changes, you will have to budget
for this on an ongoing basis.
All of these numbers can vary, so any
office considering imaging their records should do a full cost analysis.
- What are the storage format and media
issues?
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- Both "master" and "use" images should be created under some circumstances.
The master image will be of the highest quality and only used for creating new
use images. Keep a master copy if any of the following are true:
- The use images will be in a format not suitable for long-term preservation.
- Different formats of use images need to be created (e.g...., a GIF image for
each page for on-screen display, and a PDF version for printing). Creating
copies from a higher quality image will produce the best copies.
- The printed original is being destroyed or is difficult to access.
- Software and hardware obsolescence - Some aspect of the formatting (most
likely operating system or file type) or hardware (most likely disk type) will
require migration within 5 years or so. Migration will add to the cost so should
be factored into cost estimates.
- Certain media storage formats, like magnetic tape and removable disks (e.g....
DVD) make it difficult to apply retention periods since the whole disk or tape
has to be disposed of at once, even if individual records have different
retention periods.
- Make backup copies
- For removable disks, make at least 2 copies of each disk and keep them in
separate, secure, locations. Removable disks, either magnetic or optical, can,
and do, go bad with no notice, so keeping one copy is foolhardy, especially
considering the expense of scanning.
- Server-based records should be regularly backed up. Even then, though, a
long-term backup is advisable since damage early in the storage period would
produce many future damaged backups.
- Check originals and backups regularly so that errors are discovered quickly.
- There's no easy answer for deciding when to migrate the records but it is
simple: do it while you still can. A good rule of thumb is to review stored
electronic records whenever the office changes its regular software.
- Storing long-term records only on removable disks (like CDs or DVDs) is
generally not a good idea. Storing at least one copy online (e.g..., a file server
or web server) is recommended.
- Long-term records will periodically need to be migrated to new formats and
media. Migrating files kept on several removable disks is a tedious process.
- Multiple copies of each disk must be created since removable disks can
become unusable in a short period of time.
- For records that may be subject to audit or legal action, the process of
preparing, scanning, and storing the records must be laid out firmly with proper
security precautions applied. Process is everything in making electronic records
hold up in court. Security precautions should include:
- personnel access restrictions
- proper metadata
- good scanning procedures
- quality control
- making sure that the images can't be tampered with after scanning.
- Consult ANSI/AIIM TR 31-2004 - Legal Acceptance of Records Produced by
Information Technology Systems for information on the procedures necessary
for creating and maintaining legally acceptable imaged records.
- Technical specifications for the master image will
depend on the project, but here are some common specifications:
- TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is a broadly adopted file format standard
applicable to black-and-white (1-bit), grayscale (8-bit), and color (24-bit)
digital images.
- for color images, 24-bit RGB without compression
- for non-color images containing illustrations, 8-bit grayscale without
compression
- for non-color images containing only text and/or line art, 1-bit with ITU-6
(aka "Group 4") lossless compression
- Capture at a high-enough dpi (dots per inch) level to render the image
clearly but not higher than necessary since that will increase the cost of
storage.
- For further information, contact the imaging@offsitebu.com
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