Microfilm/microfiche to Digital

[SCTiger]

Comrades:

Has anyone had any experience with converting older microfilm and microfiche records to CD-Rom or digital storage? Can anyone recommend a company that has a proven record of converting film records to digital storage?

If we were able to convert some of the archived records to digital friendly formats, it would improve accessibility to historians and our hobby. Not many people have the time or opportunity to travel to archives and photocopy the records in storage. Converting many of the non-copyrighted and public records would go a long way in improving our authenticity and our knowledge of the war. Which hard to access records would you like to see digitized?
Is there any way to secure public and/or private funding (as a form of preservation) to accomplish this?

The conversion from microfilm to digital should repoduce a higher resolution over a paper photocopy. It would also allow for digital enhancement of the photo copies.

[Dignann]

Re: Microfilm/microfiche to Digital

Gregory:

My local college has been upgrading some of their microfilm and microfiche machines lately. The new machines allow the user to not only print, but to also save the image being viewed to a disk. Obviously, the quality of the scanned image is only as good as the film/fiche and the machine.

Check around with your local institutions and see if they have acquired similar machines. I suspect we'll see more of these being used in the future.

Eric

[markj]

Re: Microfilm/microfiche to Digital

An obvious place to contact would be Proquest Information and Learning (aka "University Microfilms International"). Proquest, which handles nearly all masters theses and Ph.D. dissertations, does this kind of stuff all the time. At the very least, they could probably give you some leads:

https://www.proquest.com

Regards,

Mark Jaeger

[Sprowls]

Re: Microfilm/microfiche to Digital

Gregory,

Your post touches on many classic and much debated issues in the
Library Profession. These issues include, not only appropriating funding,
but a large number of other concerns that libraries or institutions must
consider when planning a digital library project. Graduate library programs
offer entire courses on traditional, as well as digital preservation, that
explore all these issues. There are many common misunderstandings about
converting to digital. Probably the most common misunderstanding is that
converting materials to digital will ensure its longterm existence or longevity.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Digital collections are subject to
all of the technological changes that continually arise in the computer world.
Without constant vigilance, upgrading, and migrating, digital resources
disappear into obsolecence. However, the tradeoff, and you mentioned it,
is accessibility. There are many public and private institutions that have
developed or are currently involved in digital projects. A well known example
of a digital library project is the Cornell University and the University of
Michigan's "Making of America" project. You can visit U-Michigan's site at:

http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/moagrp/

This project out sourced its conversion process to Northern Micrographics,
Inc., a service vendor in LaCrosse, WI. To find out more about the Making
of America conversion process, visit the following page:

http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/moagrp/moa_conversion.html

You can perform a Google search to find out more about Northern
Micrographics. However, in your particular case Proquest would probably be
the way to go, as Mark mentioned.

You may want to visit MOA and other digital collections to learn more about
these types of resources. There's usually an "about" link that explains that
particular project's development experience.

You also asked if there's anyway to secure public/private funding for
a digitization project. Yes, but its a very structured process involving
applying for grants. Library and archive managment persons learn in grad
school the appropriate way to write grant proposals. There are many
online and hardcopy resources that list funders. For instance, "Community
of Science" is an online resource where researchers can "search the
world's most comprehensive funding resource, with more than 23,000
records representing nearly 400,000 opportunities, worth over $33 billion."
Here's a the URL to the COS website:

http://www.cos.com/

While this site focuses on the scientific community, it gives you an idea
of the vast number of places that institutions such as libraries or archives
can search for funding. You can find more funding information at your local
library. BTW, just cause there's lots of places to apply for grants, doesn't
mean there's an abundance of money for archives or libraries.

You mentioned converting "some of the archived records to digital friendly
format". I'm not exactly sure which collections or types of materials you are
referring to? There are so many public and private archival collections
containing information relevant to the Civil War period, that you would really
need to specify a particular institution.

As far as accessing various collections, don't forget your local library's
interlibrary loan service. You'd be surprised what they can find for you.
Also, check to see if the insitution in question already has some kind of
digital resource. One thing many of us would like to do is access the National
Archives and find the clothing or equipage returns for our favorite
Civil War regiments. while that information is not readily available over the
Web, there are other ways to access this information without traveling
to Washington DC. For instance, you might be able to contract with a
student at one of the DC area colleges to conduct research for you.
Here's a link to the NARA:

http://www.archives.gov/

I guess to sum up, yes, its possible to digitize collections. However,
digitization projects can take hundreds of thousands of dollars, as
well as several years, or more, to develop. Entire professions are devoted
to this sort of thing. It is very unlikely that a particular institution would
digitize their collection, or part of their collection, just because they
were requested by a user to do so. I'd say, if you really want to work on
digitizing collections, you'll need to become a professional Librarian/Archivist.


Chuck Sprowls

Comrades:

Has anyone had any experience with converting older microfilm and microfiche records to CD-Rom or digital storage? Can anyone recommend a company that has a proven record of converting film records to digital storage?

If we were able to convert some of the archived records to digital friendly formats, it would improve accessibility to historians and our hobby. Not many people have the time or opportunity to travel to archives and photocopy the records in storage. Converting many of the non-copyrighted and public records would go a long way in improving our authenticity and our knowledge of the war. Which hard to access records would you like to see digitized?
Is there any way to secure public and/or private funding (as a form of preservation) to accomplish this?



The conversion from microfilm to digital should repoduce a higher resolution over a paper photocopy. It would also allow for digital enhancement of the photo copies.

[SCTiger]

Re: Microfilm/microfiche to Digital

Chuck, Mark and Eric:

Thanks for our informative responses. The target records are mostly, rare one-of-a-kind records and other microfilm records that are out of production.
Some of these would include wartime newspaper accounts, that would be easier to manipulate in digital format. I am also working on securing permission to have the Augusta Arsenal Records transferred.

Although I am not a professional writer, researcher or historian. There are some specific records that greatly aid the information flow for reenactors and thereby improving our authenticity. Creating a large, easy to access, easy to read and search records is a paramount mission. Going through microfilm records in South Carolina, I finally received my Great-Great-Great Grandfathers obituary. After numerous years of searching the local newspaper microfilms, Miles Gardner finally found the obit. I knew he died between 1910-1920 via census records. Had the "Kershaw Era" been digitized, our search would have been much shorter. I am now ordering the VA stone for his unmarked grave, that was located as well. It's been a long search.

If we could raise some funds, I like to digitally transfer some arsenal and official records and make them available to this forum. It would be a quantum leap.