LIBRARY WORKFLOW AND META DATA

The move for massive digitization of vast collections is on. The promise of a global library is real. In fact, the concept could be reduced to a one word metaphor -- GOOGLEIZATION.

Demand can only be met economically through increased productivity, so the question arises about where we can make productivity gains. There is no doubt that the advent of the I2S and Kirtas robotic scanners will have an impact, but these technologies are in their beginning stages and are initially costly. Other scanners are running about as fast as is practical without sacrificing image quality. The scanning of truly rare and oversized books is still laborious, and scanning 3-dimensional objects is not an automated process. Therefore, the focus on productivity must include all stages of the manufacturing process.

Stage 1 -- Prep for Capture
Stage 2 -- Capture
Stage 3 -- Image Post-Processing and QC
Stage 4 -- Creation and Entry of MetaData
Stage 5 -- Creation of Derivatives
Stage 6 -- Publication

To achieve productivity, all these stages must be as automated and streamlined as possible, and the entire workflow must be seamlessly integrated.

To date, creating such a system from scratch required months of precious ramp-up time, and the time and talent of staff, programmers, IT people, and consultants (not to mention the cost of that professional time).

That is why AIA is excited about its new partners, Aptigent Software and IIRI, the distributor for I2S products in North America. Code name HENRY (sorry, what can you do?), this will be a free-standing book processing software, combining book image processing (curvature correction, page splitting, batch cropping, etc.) with databasing, meta date entry, OCR, derivative creation and publication in a single seamless workflow.

Opus is another approach to workflow. Opus was developed by Image Access, based on their years of experience in creating processing software for the banking and credit industries and emulating the workflow of one of America's largest universities.