Tameran Wide Format Insider

The Top 4 Reasons for Replacing Your Microfilm Camera

Mark Wise — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:00:00 GMT

Why Replace Microfilm Cameras and Plotters with Digital Microfilm Recording Technology?

1. You’re using one of the following obsolete microfilm cameras.

Kodak MRG Microfilm Camera
Kodak MRD Microfilm Camera
Wicks & Wilson ACOI Aperture Card Plotter
Wicks &Wilson ACOII Aperture Card Plotter
Microbox CADMIC Aperture Card Plotter
Quintek Aperture Card Plotter
Microbox Polycom Microfilm Plotter
3M 2600 Camera
3M 2800 Camera
3M 2900 Camera
3M2950 Plotter
Kodak, Canon, Minolta, ALOS, or Zeutschel Rotary Microfilm Camera
Kodak, Canon Minolta, ALOS, or Zeutschel Planetary Microfilm Camera
and more.....

2. It is difficult or even impossible to get parts or service for your planetary or rotary microfilm camera.

3. You are using a labor intensive multi-step process to create archival microfilm or archival aperture cards. [Camera - Film Processor - Card Mounter - Key Punch]

4. You are dealing with environmental and work place issues associated with handling processing chemistry.

Good News! Today, obsolete microfilm cameras or plotters can be replaced with modern digital technology. Paper documents can be scanned using high quality and highly productive paper scanners to create digital images. These images can then be recorded onto archival microfilm and aperture cards utilizing high quality digital recording devices. Digital documents such as CAD files can also be recorded on archival microfilm and aperture cards utilizing high quality digital recording devices. This allows paper documents to be combined with digitally-created documents and recorded on archival microfilm.

Even better news! Recording onto 16mm or 35mm microfilm or aperture cards can be done on an outsource service basis in the United States utilizing high-speed automated equipment at costs similar to making a paper copy or print.

Eliminate investment in expensive equipment and high cost maintenance contracts
Eliminate concerns about workplace compliance issues and environmental regulations by eliminating handling of chemistry in processing
Control costs and quality by outsourcing to an experienced microfilm archiver supplying a highly automated process

Continuing to record and maintain vital records on archival microfilm for long-term access and security has never been easier or as cost effective. Modern digital microfilm technology can deliver quality results that surpass the capabilities of the cameras listed above and provide the assurance of long-term document access.

Tameran offers outsource digital microfilm recording services to end users, resellers and other outsource service providers. Contact Tameran today to learn more.

Wide Format Print Offloading - What Were They Thinking?

Mark Wise — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:29:00 GMT

Unscrambling the Wide Format Print Output Mystery

Did you ever wonder why manufacturers of wide format ink jet printers such as Epson, HP and Canon did an excellent job of designing great, cost-effective printers for wide format drawings but failed miserably in providing a productive method for off-loading prints as they are produced? If you use one of these printers, you know that the prints are basically thrown on the floor. Yes, there is usually a cloth basket to catch the print, but the print is basically on the floor. Sometimes a metal or plastic contraption is associated with these cloth baskets, but figuring out how to effectively use it when making more than one print at a time is difficult. In fact, if you are printing multiple copies or print sets, you will receive results that most users describe as @*&$%! I guarantee that those censored words are not “neat collated sets.”

The reason is probably obvious; off-loading prints was simply not a priority in their design goals. Design objectives such as lowest possible hardware cost and high quality output were of the highest importance. If they could meet these, they would be able to sell lots of ink. The sale of ink is the top objective; the printer is the razor and the ink is the blade. In fact, printers are sold at very little margin, if any, in order to create the need for ink. To be sure, they also came up with other design objectives like “small foot print” and fast print speed to enhance their position without adding significant hardware cost. To handle large prints in a productive manner would also add to the hardware cost and require more floor space.

Increasing the cost of the hardware is not acceptable because it impacts the sale of printers to low volume or occasional users that probably don't require much in the way of off-loading prints. However, in order for moderate and higher volume users to be productive, printers require solutions for receiving prints that are ergonomic and don't increase labor costs. Offloading solutions that provide a place for prints to be stacked in an orderly manner for retrieval by professional users saves labor costs. And that is the crux of the issue. Labor savings was never part of the design criteria for these printers. Printer manufacturers believe that the labor cost incurred by the user to separate, sort and collate prints as well as to pick prints off of the floor is a hidden cost that most users do not recognize and therefore does not affect their ability to sell ink. Maybe someday they will recognize that users who generate higher productivity could indeed sell more ink. In the meantime, solutions for properly offloading prints are available from independent document distribution specialists.

Four Ways to Make Your Large Format Ink Jet Printer More Productive

Here are four ways a paper stacker will improve off loading of prints from your large format ink jet printer and make the printer more productive and efficient:

Achieve unattended and overnight printing by adding a rugged offload shelf for large quantities of prints
Print multi-page print sets neatly without fear that prints will fall to the floor or mess up sequential pages
Provide for online printing from multiple workstations to one printer without the need to stand at the copier or printer waiting to catch prints as they exit
Reduce time for personnel to be at the printer; use time wisely and manage time effectively

To learn more about wide format print off-loading solutions contact Tameran today.

Common Sense Tips for Document Storage and Disaster Preparedness

Mark Wise — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:00:00 GMT

Did you ever wonder why so many people have great common sense after a disaster strikes but for some reason common sense is in short supply before it happens?

Do you know how many warehouses that store active and inactive documents are located in areas that flood or are susceptible to hurricanes? The answer is way more than common sense would dictate.

What about storing documents that are important or vital to you or your business in a basement or ground floor of a building? Common sense would of course say this is not a good idea, yet we often find it to be the case even at nuclear generating stations. The news routinely reports the result as heart breaking and causing huge setbacks for individuals and companies who are not careful.

What if the documents you store are vital records; records, regardless of medium, which are essential to an organization, including government and or society in general, and crucial for the continuation of business functions both during and after a disaster? These records may be permanent or temporary, active or inactive, originals or copies. Would common sense prevail before a disaster or is it only clear after the documents are ruined?

Unfortunately, we know the answer. Common sense tends to be pushed aside until it is too late, often times due to a desire to save money.

Plans for duplicating documents, archiving on microfilm media, and storing in a common sense off-site location should all be part of document preservation and emergency preparedness for most organizations including corporations, hospitals, utilities and state and local government agencies.

Think of all the records that are essential to protecting life, property, rights and to restoring order following a disaster. What happens if and when any of the following are lost?

Maps and floor plans to aid rescue workers
Construction records to aid engineers assess damage to buildings, tunnels, levees
Infrastructure records
Medical records for safe and effective treatment of patients
Plat maps, deeds and mortgage records for establishing ownership
Bank records to verify financial assets
State, county and city historical records
Business and personal records

Disasters come in many forms and certainly not only natural ones. Consider the following when evaluating your level of preparation for the unknown and risk you are willing to take on the life of your documents. Do any of these apply to your organization?

Reliance on a single technology. Are all your vital records on a disk or memory card, or in the “Cloud”? Are all your eggs in one basket? Disaster does not only strike paper. What about data loss on desktop computers or corporate servers?
The pace at which technological obsolescence occurs and your ability to open records down the road.
Inadequate analysis of risks. Have you considered natural and man-made disasters such as hackers, inadvertent human error, arson, terrorist attacks, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc? Are your business critical documents stored in a basement, flood zone,
Management incompetence. (Not applicable to every organization, but it does happen.)
Cost-cutting. Negating the need for an alternative record source in order to save money or use toward a new project.

In protecting your “vital records” consider implementing common sense before it’s too late. Look for ways to reduce risk and provide a safety net for your critical records. Consider your current document preservation and storage technique and implement a new plan if necessary. Then if ever misfortune strikes, you will say after the fact “I’m sure glad we had the common sense to protect the information that is fundamental and crucial to us and the life of our organization.”

Merge Paper and Digital Documents for Long Term Document Preservation

Mark Wise — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:33:00 GMT

In the past, paper documents were filmed directly on to microfilm using a microfilm camera that created the film by essentially taking a picture of the document. These microfilm cameras were capable of recording documents with good fidelity if you had a good quality document to film.

Today, a microfilm image of a paper document can be created by first converting the document to a digital image by scanning the document. The scanning process provides the opportunity to improve the quality of a document by digitally enhancing the image through the use of image processing software. The digital image can then be recorded on to archive microfilm using a high quality digital microfilm recording device (sometimes referred to as "archive writers").

There is also a synergistic benefit to scanning your paper documents to create a long term microfilm archive: creating a digital file of your paper documents that can be integrated with your other digital document files for quick access in today's digital world. The scanned images of your paper documents can even be combined with your digital documents before they are recorded onto long term archive media.

Merging paper and digital documents for digital access and preservation on archive microfilm provides quick digital access to documents as well as long term preservation of those documents.

Tameran can provide solutions to merge your paper and digital documents with equipment, software and outsource services. To learn more, contact Tameran today.

Six Steps to Successful Aperture Card Scanning

Mark Wise — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:25:00 GMT

If you are about to embark on a project to scan aperture cards, make sure you have considered all of the steps necessary for a successful project. There are six important steps to be considered and acted upon when converting aperture cards to digital images in order to create usable images within a realistic budget.

1. Pull cards from storage.

One of the most basic tasks is often forgotten: pulling aperture cards from their storage location and moving them to the scanning station or sending them to an outside service provider in an organized manner. It is amazing how many projects don't get started simply because the labor to accomplish this task was overlooked and was not available. Make sure you have the labor available to gather the cards to be scanned.

2. Evaluate the condition of the aperture cards for batch or automated scanning.

Theoretically if your aperture cards were made in accordance with ANSI Standards, they could be scanned in an automated method which would provide high quality results at the rated throughput of the scanner. Unfortunately, in the many years of working with aperture cards, I have found relatively few cards that actually were made 100% to industry standards. Typically, cards from different periods of time would be made to different loosely interpreted variations of the ANSI, (American National Standards Institute), AIIM, (Association for Image and Information Management), or NMA, National Microfilm Association) Standards.

Issues that will affect automated scanning include:

Magnification ratios for specific document sizes
Resolution
Film density
Image contrast
Hollerith encoding of index
Hollerith encoding of document size
Image centering

To determine the degree of automated scanning that can be performed, all of these factors must be taken into account. In addition, as previously stated, even within a library of aperture cards from a single organization these factors can vary in accordance with the time frame in which the aperture cards were produced.

3. Evaluate Post Processing, Quality Review and Enhancement Steps required to assure high quality usable digital images.

After the aperture cards are scanned, additional steps may be necessary to assure that the digital images are of the quality necessary for viewing and printing. Consideration of factors such as deskewing or straightening the images, cropping or sizing the images to the original document size, splitting images for documents filmed with multiple pages in a single frame, and removing excessive speckles caused by dirt or other film issues.

4. Index images in accordance with a structure that will assure the ability to retrieve images as needed.

This step is very important if you want to find your images later in a sea of digital data.

Questions to consider include:

Is the data contained on the aperture card in the form of the hollerith code?
Will the index information require entering data?
Where will the index information come from? From a database? From information on the document or other source?

5. Output images and index or metadata to a specific file format that will support use of the documents.

In this step you should consider:

If the documents will consist of a single page or multiple pages
What will the file format will be? (Usually PDF or TIFF)
Will the index data and/or other metadata be embedded in the image file to facilitate importing into a database?

6. Store or dispose of aperture cards.

What will happen to the aperture cards after they have been scanned? If discarding, how and where will this be accomplished? If you are going to continue to store the aperture cards, do you have a storage facility that will provide the proper environmental storage and security? If you are going to destroy the aperture cards, you will want to consider the time frame, method of destruction, and how this will be accomplished.

As you probably have observed, each of these steps requires a thoughtful decision process along with the commitment of a budget, both in terms of expenditures and labor to complete the project. Shortcuts may save a little time or dollars, but they will most likely also significantly impact the ability to use the data which of course is the primary reason to embark on a scanning project in the first place.

Tameran can help with your aperture card scanning project by providing equipment, software and support for you to complete the project or Tameran can provide a turnkey outsource scanning solution. Contact Tameran to learn more.

My Aperture Card Reader-Printer is Dead

Mark Wise — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:15:00 GMT

Does any of the following sound familiar?

My aperture card reader-printer has reached the end of its useful life.
Service for my reader-printer is no longer available.
Parts are no longer available but we still have thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and even millions of aperture cards in our files.
These aperture cards contain information that is important and does not exist in any other format. How can we access this information? How can we make prints? How can we e-mail the information or make the information available online?

We hear this story over and over again. There are two potential answers to these questions:

Convert all the aperture cards into digital files - or
Scan one aperture card at a time as it is needed

Scanning all of the aperture cards so that they would be instantly available is the dream solution and can be accomplished internally or on an outsourced basis. However, this can be a budget buster if you have a large collection of aperture cards. The cost benefit may be difficult to justify if access is relatively infrequent when compared to the total number of cards.

Nevertheless, there is a solution that is extremely cost effective and very similar to using a reader-printer.

Simply pull the aperture card from the file when it is needed and scan the card using a small, portable, single card scanner. This process can even be easier than using a reader-printer since you can adjust the quality of the digital image before you print it or make it available electronically.

Achieve Superior Digital Images and Prints with Single Card Scanners

You can purchase a single aperture card scanner that will provide results that are far superior to any reader-printer you may have used in the past. You will achieve quality prints or files that were never possible from a reader-printer.

Easier to Use

A single card scanner is easier to use than any reader-printer you may have used in the past.

Compact in Size and Environmentally Friendly

How much space did your reader-printer require? Single card scanners are compact and in some cases no bigger than the telephone on your desktop.

How much noise, heat and pollution did it generate? Single card aperture card scanners are environmentally friendly.

Cost-Effective Scanning

Best of all, single card scanners are economical. Since pricing for single card scanners is only approximately $10,000, a small fraction of what reader-printers cost, it is a solution that does not bust your budget and is cost effective.

Consider the cost over a seven year life cycle. For a cost of less than $120 per month, you can have quick access to your aperture cards in a little more than 10 seconds.

You don't have to wait days for your aperture cards to be sent to an outside service, incur minimum charges, deal with the procurement process, and have no control on the quality of the image or print that is returned. And, you won't have to incur the high cost of an engineer to re-engineer or redraw the documentation contained on the aperture card. The cost to re-engineer and redraw just one drawing can cost over $1,000.

Contact Tameran to learn about the Wicks & Wilson C-Drive X single aperture card scanner to find out why it is known as “The Little Engine that Could”!

Going Digital—Is Scanning All That Matters?

Mark Wise — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:40:00 GMT

There are many types of scanners as well as companies offering outsource scanning services to convert paper and microfilm documents to digital files. The technology used in scanning paper or microfilm documents is mature and if proper equipment is selected for the specific requirement, documents can be productively scanned.

However, beyond the actual scanning of the documents, there are a couple of issues that need careful consideration:

Are the scanned digital documents usable? Simply put, are the documents readable, legible, and printable in a digital system of workstations, smart phones and tablets?
Are the documents indexed or mapped to a metadata system so they can be quickly accessed in a digital system when needed?

Both issues are not directly a function of scanning the document. They require additional steps in the process of converting paper or microfilm documents to digital files.

Image Size: Are Your Scanned Images Really Usable?

To assure useful, readable documents, the conversion process must include steps for properly sizing images at the time of conversion.

“If you find a bad scan, we will rescan the document.” Have you heard this before? Is this a process to assure quality? This approach is of no value since the original document may no longer be available or must be found and rescanned which defeats the purpose of scanning documents for quick access and integration into a digital system. Simply scanning a document, internally or through outsource services, is not enough. If your quality guarantee includes rescanning “bad” scans, the process fails; it is a guarantee of system failure, business interruption and increased costs.

Are Your Digital Document Images Indexed and Retrievable?

Today most documents are created in digital systems. In fact, so many digital documents are created each day, it is a challenge to keep up with indexing and storing them in a manner that assures immediate availability. Similarly, when converting paper or microfilm documents to digital formats, it is important to create or maintain an indexing system or to at least capture metadata describing the documents for purposes of retrieving or sharing them in a digital world. File names that fail to be unique, meaningful or indexed will be of little help in quickly accessing a digital document image.

When initiating a scanning project, don't forget to pay careful attention to the additional steps in the process that are necessary to assure success.

Software that provides image enhancement, indexing and metadata capture is available as well as reputable outsource service providers who achieve consistent, high-quality scanning results. By using Tameran ImagePrep software or outsourcing to our service bureau, you can assure that those extra steps that make a difference will be achieved on your next scanning project.

All Aperture Card Scanners are NOT Created Equal

Bill Millen — Thu, 26 May 2011 13:18:00 GMT

Aperture card scanners that are available today fall into one of three categories based on their technical design characteristics.

These categories are commonly referred to as:

"Camera on a Stick",
"Screen Scrapers", and
"Factor or Line Scanners"

To achieve the best quality results in microfilm scanning, you will want to consider Factor or Line scanners. When scanning aperture cards which typically contain images of drawings, it is very important to assure usable, readable information. Line scanners are available in configurations for convenience scanning and high production scanning.

Let’s take a closer look at the three categories of microfilm aperture card scanners available:

Multi-Function Library Scanner or "Camera on a Stick"

Not recommended for large size documents such as drawings!

The “Camera on a Stick” is a multi-function scanner that can be configured to scan aperture cards, microfiche or roll microfilm. It consists of a light table, film transport, lens system and digital camera. In order to accomplish a scan with this type of device, the appropriate lens is set into its holder and the piece of film, or card, is placed in the film transport and manually positioned under the lens. The image on the film is projected to the camera and a digital image is shot or created. The image is then displayed on a monitor and some minor image quality adjustments can be made using the accompanying software or Photoshop^®. The resolution is usually referenced at the film plane or in megapixels of the camera and is acceptable for film of A-size documents, but will fall off quickly in the larger size documents. These scanners are typically used for casual reference viewing in libraries. Results are similar to shooting a picture on a cell phone camera and then trying to make photo enlargements. The price range for this type of scanner is $6,000 to $11,000.

Multi-Function Microform Reader/Scanner or "Screen Scraper"

Analog or optical view followed by digital scan

The “Screen Scraper” is also a multi-function scanner. Typically its design is based on a microfilm viewer. “Screen Scrapers” come in several different viewing screen sizes with the larger ones appropriate for viewing engineering drawing images on aperture cards. Scanning is carried out by first selecting the appropriate lens, placing film in the film carrier, then positioning the film so that the image is properly positioned under the lens. It may be necessary to refocus the lens at that time for a clearer image. A light is shown through the film and the image is projected through the lens, bounced across several mirrors and then finally projected onto the viewing screen. Some adjustments may be necessary to the film or the viewing optics to get proper presentation of the image on film. When the user is satisfied, they usually press a "Scan" button and a scan bar moves down the screen and captures the projected image. It is then shown on the monitor. If corrections or adjustments to the final image are necessary, they are made and the process is repeated. These scanners are also typically used for casual reference viewing in libraries. The images that are captured should never be enlarged or printed to any larger than a B-size document due to degradation of image quality. This variety of scanner ranges in price from $9,000-$17,000.

Single Purpose Scanner or "Factor or Line Scanner"

Create high quality images of large documents such as engineering drawings

Factor or Line scanners are generally single-purpose scanners that only scan one type of microfilm. All have similar imaging technology that use a light source, lens, CCD array, and film transport mechanism to move film through the optics. Line scanners also incorporate software algorithms designed around the size of the original documents and use reduction factors to make the microfilm for capturing raw image data. The scanning resolutions referenced are of the original document size and result in highly accurate representations of the original document. Typically, Factor or Line scanners have auto-card feed mechanisms, Hollerith punch interpreters, and software tools for maximizing the image quality. Features that vary include speed, ease of use and selection of tools. Prices range from $10,000 to $40,000 for this category of scanner.

Wicks and Wilson, the world’s leading manufacturer of microfilm line scanners, offers several models of aperture card scanners. Each offers increasing levels of automation and the highest quality image production. The C-Drive X scans one card at a time, is very simple to operate, compact and convenient, yet delivers high quality results. The C-400 makes quick work of scanning a set of aperture cards. The CS750 Scanstation, the ultimate in high production aperture card scanning, makes projects for converting files of aperture cards to digital images fast and easy. Tameran is the exclusive North American distributor of Wicks and Wilson aperture card scanners. Tameran also offers digital archive services that include aperture card scanning.

What’s your experience with aperture card scanners? Are you obtaining the scanning results you need or expected? Comment below!

Discuss your requirements and the proper process for archiving your microfilm with one of Tameran’s digital archive and scanning experts today!

Photoshop is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries.

Is It Microfilm to Digital or Digital to Microfilm?

Mark Wise — Thu, 05 May 2011 21:45:00 GMT

It’s Both! Use Digital and Microfilm!

For quick access to information, documents that are recorded on microfilm can be converted to digital formats such as tiff or PDF then integrated with other digital documents and managed using a digital-based document management system. Nothing beats the speed or convenience of accessing documents over digital networks. However, if the document is a vital record that needs to be maintained for decades or even centuries, microfilm is the most cost effective way to not only store the document but to assure availability long into the future.

For documents in which quick and/or frequent near-term access is advantageous, conversion from microfilm to digital formats by scanning and indexing with metadata is an excellent solution. Microfilm documents can be converted to digital documents at costs slightly higher than making a paper copy. To convert documents yourself, you can acquire microfilm scanners such as the Wicks and Wilson C-400 aperture card scanner and image processing software such as Tameran's Image Prep to assure quality images are captured and indexed for digital document distribution. Or, you can outsource the conversion from roll microfilm, aperture cards or microfiche using services of companies like Tameran that have the equipment, software and expertise to provide a turnkey solution.

Likewise, there are significant advantages to converting digital documents to microfilm in terms of cost and long-term security especially when there is a need to be archived over a long period of time or when access is infrequent. Cost is lower because documents do not need to be constantly migrated through time to preserve formats and prevent data loss. Once recorded on microfilm, document integrity does not change and all that is needed to view the image is light and magnification. The cost of recording digital documents onto film is similar to making a paper copy. You can utilize Tameran's Image Prep and Roll Film Composer software to prepare documents to be recorded on microfilm at Tameran's Archive Microfilm Recording Center or you can outsource the entire process to companies like Tameran that have the process, software and recording equipment to provide a turnkey solution.

Documents recorded on microfilm can always be converted back to digital formats using scanners and made available using current digital systems and networks. The document life cycle can be continued even if a digital system is corrupted, incurs data loss or can not be migrated to a more current media.

The best solutions are those that are appropriate for the need. In many cases, especially where records are vital as a historic or legal record or essential for the ongoing life of a product or process, both microfilm to digital and digital to microfilm are the answer. Consider your current document distribution and long term storage needs and use both systems to your advantage.

Choosing the Correct Microfilm Preservation Media

Mark Wise — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 22:45:00 GMT

Does it matter whether I record my documents on 16mm or 35mm microfilm?

A previous blog post explained the importance of microfilm for long term preservation of documents as an addition to digital storage. Second to recognizing the importance of archiving critical documents on microfilm is understanding which microfilm media to use per application. For example, many times organizations settle for archiving documents larger than 12” x 18”, such as engineering or technical documents, on to 16mm microfilm. This can be a big mistake in terms of resolution obtained and future readability both by scanner or human eye.

There are three major types of microfilm media used for long term preservation: 16mm roll microfilm, 35mm roll microfilm and 35mm microfilm mounted in aperture cards. The type of media utilized for preservation microfilming should be matched to the type of document being recorded in order to obtain optimum resolution for future viewing and printing. If the image does not have sufficient resolution for a human or a scanner to read the data, the microfilm fails as a "reference archive" for the purpose of preserving the document. Generally this means a minimum resolution of at least 300 dpi is necessary. Resolution below 230dpi should be avoided.

When to Use 16mm Microfilm

If all documents being archived are office documents (letter, legal, and ledger size - up to 12" x 18" landscape orientation or A3 size landscape orientation), the use of 16mm roll microfilm as a reference archive media will, in most cases, provide the desired result. Most archive recording devices in use are capable of producing archived images at resolutions of 285 dpi or greater on 16mm microfilm. (Screen shot to the right shows documents 11" x 17" and smaller composed on 16mm microfilm using Tameran Microfilm Roll Composer.)

When to Record on to 35mm Microfilm

If the materials being recorded include larger documents such as engineering drawings, plat maps or ledger books (portrait orientation), the use of 35mm archive media in the form of roll film or mounted aperture cards is required to produce images that have sufficient resolution. Only a few archive recording devices in use have the capability to produce archive images with resolutions of 230 dpi or greater on 35mm microfilm. (Screen shot to the right shows various documents including C (17" x 22") and D (24" x 36") size on 35mm microfilm created with Tameran Microfilm Roll Composer.)

When to Use Aperture Cards

If your archive system is a continuation of a legacy system that was based upon the use of 35mm aperture cards to store and distribute documents, you may want to continue this system for compatibility. This would be particularly true if you currently have a large legacy collection of aperture cards or if your application requires a unit file for document reference or distribution. Historically, 35mm aperture cards have been used when originals include larger documents such as engineering drawings, plot maps, etc.

Be a Smart Microfilm Consumer

Document resolution is not only affected by archive media width but also by resolution capabilities of the recording device. Be aware when purchasing equipment or services for recording onto 35mm microfilm that not all recording devices have the ability to produce document resolutions of 300 dpi or higher. Ask your service provider what type of equipment they are using and what resolution to expect from their processes.

Recording business critical documents on microfilm is of great importance for preserving documents long term. Not all documents may have a life cycle that necessitates recording onto microfilm, but if you deal with documents that are significant to the creation, maintenance or legal implication of a manufactured product with a long “shelf life”, government records, land records, etc. then recording on the correct microform should not be overlooked so documents retain their original integrity and resolution.

A Digital Archive Is Not Preservation

Mark Wise — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 04:05:00 GMT

Maintaining a digital archive of company document records is made easier everyday with a myriad of cost-effective, on-site and cloud storage solutions, but a digital document archive is not the same as preserving a document. While digital archives can provide the ability to have quick access and low cost storage of documents, they inherently lack the attributes associated with preservation of a document.

Preservation requires documents to be recorded on a media that renders them as:

Unalterable
Technology independent
Maintaining original record integrity and authenticity
Self-sustaining over a long period of time (no migration maintenance is required)
Easily convertible back to digital format for access and viewing

Recording digital documents on reference archive microfilm media is one of the ways documents can be preserved with all of the listed attributes that are essential to successfully preserving a document.

Archive microfilm can not be modified or corrupted by a key stroke or digital manipulation, does not require a specific operating system, computer application, file format compatibility, or digital media availability. Documents recorded on archive microfilm maintain the original record integrity and authenticity and are self sustaining without the need of data migration for a period of at least 5 centuries, and are easily convertible by scanning back to digital format for access and viewing.

Microfilm is relatively inexpensive to record; approximately the same cost of making a paper print of a document. Storage of archive microfilm is also cost effective because the storage space required is a fraction of space required to store paper documents and, because archive microfilm requires no migration maintenance, the high cost of migrating digital documents through time is never incurred.