Digitizing your archives
Archive digitization. All your archives at your fingertips, all the time.
If you want access to all your data digitally, but part of it is still only on paper, archive digitisation may be the solution.
Digitizing your archives offers many advantages in terms of storage space, search time and efficiency with benefits to your customers or other partners. In addition, you can make digital archives accessible to multiple employees in multiple locations.
In principle, it is quite possible to digitize paper files yourself. You need to have good scanning equipment and create a clear filing system for the materials. Digital storage with OCR and a time investment may also be considered. It is advisable to write a project plan with all requirements for this in advance. Unfortunately, all too often the result is unworkable, and the digitization process takes longer or fails as a result. If you want to digitize archive materials yourself, download the free Digitization Step-by-step Plan e-book here.
It may be preferable for your organization to call in a specialist to digitise the archives. This often leads to a faster, better and more efficient result. The most common form of digitization is scanning. Scanning for digitisation takes two forms: scanning on demand and backlog scanning.
Scanning on demand
In the case of scanning on demand, we digitise archive documents as they are requested. This is the preferred option if you do not expect information from the archive to be needed very often. Scanning on demand avoids substantial investments in digitizing an entire archive that may seldom be needed in digital form. When we receive a digitization request, our employees locate the relevant document or file and digitise it. A Scanning on Demand request has a turnaround time of about 24 hours by e-mail. Urgent requests can also be submitted, and digitised files are then sent within a few hours.
An additional advantage of this method is that a digital archive of the much sought-after (living) archive is slowly but surely being built up. The remaining (dead) paper archives remain safely stored until the date of destruction.
Backlog scanning
With backlog scanning, the archive is fully scanned in one go. If a paper archive is expected to be needed digitally, now or in the longer term, backlog scanning is the best choice. Moreover, due to the project-based approach, it is often the most advantageous method when it comes to the digitization cost per page or file.
Furthermore, it is no longer necessary to store the hard copies of the digitized archives for a long time, or to make requests from them. This saves future costs.
Curious about the possibilities?
Interesting articles
How much does pallet storage cost?
Digitizing or storing administration?
What does it cost to digitize archives?
What is the cost of storing archives?
Retention obligation and retention periods
Digitizing the archive: what do you need to know?
Our solutions for paper archives in the digital age
digitisation
ARCHIVE STORAGE
ARCHIVE MOVING
RECORDS MANAGEMENT
© 2019 Archiefkluis