Tag Archives: microfiche conversion

When Should You Convert Microfiche?

Okay, so you either work with microfiche in your office OR you have come across a project which requires microfiche conversion. What are the signs saying you should invest in microfiche scanning?

You Have Too Many Microfiche

It may be hard to organize and work with thousands of microfiche cards on a daily basis or even to deal with the occasional microfiche request. On one end of the coin, you may have gotten used to dealing with so many microfiche- and perhaps it is even job security- but if you want to make your life easier and save your organization money, you might as well bite the bullet now. In fact, you may be surprised how inexpensive a microfiche conversion is compared to the labor already invested.

Your Microfiche is Decaying

Microfiche will get damaged from overuse, light, poor humidity, chemicals, water, cockroaches, and poor storage. If the microfiche starts to smell badly (like vinegar) you need to scan that microfiche as soon as possible or risk catastrophic loss. If you are not currently using standard microfiche preservation techniques, you are in trouble.

How to Perform Microfiche Scanning

If you or your organization has COM fiche, 35mm or 16mm microfiche jackets, step and repeat microfiche, or other types of microfiche, I’m sure you have wondered about how to digitize microfiche to PDF. The simplest way is to simply e-mail or call a scanning company like Generation Imaging to get a microfiche scanning quote.

Microfiche scanning requires specialized machinery called microfiche scanners, manufactured by such companies as Mekel, Sunrise, NextScan, and others. Microfiche scanners are not easy to set up and require microfiche scanner maintenance plans, experienced labor, and a whole network configuration. They also cost a ton of money.

Converting microfiche to digital images makes your life easier. Many microfilm government RFP bids require microfiche conversions as well, so if you come across a microfiche conversion job, feel free to contact this scanning company and see how you’d like to partner up. CONTACT US

Myths About Transferring Microfiche to Digital Image

July 21, 2009

Damian Hospital

Microfiche scanning No Comments

Microfiche Myths

There are a few misconceptions about microfiche in general and microfiche conversion. Here are some good ones:

People don’t use microfiche anymore

Do people still use microfiche? Actually, yes, they do. Schools still use 16mm microfiche files which contain your dreaded permanent record. City or country land records and blueprints are stored on 35mm microfiche. Electronic payroll records are exported to COM microfiche. The U.S. government gives veterans their service records on microfiche. Automobile and vehicle manuals exist on microfiche and are used by mechanics and part order companies.There are many industries which still use microfiche.

Microfiche scanning is expensive

Converting microfiche to digital images is not expensive if Generation Imaging is performing your project. Pricing is based on volume and larger volume microfiche projects are very cheap per image.Even if you only have one card or a one batch, the cost to convert microfiche is much lower than you would expect if you send the work to a microfiche scanning company. Now, if you buy a microfiche reader printer or scanner, you need to invest thousands of dollars in the microfiche machine alone.

Microfiche is microfilm

Microfiche means “little card”. Microfiche are flat plastic sheets with small images. Microfilm are rolls of film, which look like small movie reels. Confusing microfilm and microfiche is common. The less frequent all-encompassing term is “microform”, which covers all micrographic media. To make matters even more confusing, something microfiche was actually microfilm- cut into strips and placed in microfiche jackets.

Microfiche is not produced anymore

Believe it or not, but a quick look at government bids reveals that microfiche generation still happens today. Many states have data retention laws which require microfiche as hard copies for legal reasons and for disaster plans. (For example, imagine if one day an EMP bomb destroys our digital computer systems or the cloud.)

Microfiche lasts forever

Although microfiche was originally created to preserve history and civilization, depending on how they are created, they can deteriorate if not stored correctly. There are many industry standard preservation techniques. The basic assumption of microfiche preservation was that they had to be stored in a climate controlled room and kept away from the elements. Unfortunately, because so many people do not follow these strict standards, microfiche can fade, smell like vinegar, become brittle, or actually lose their images. CONTACT US

Microfiche RFP Government Bids

July 20, 2009

Damian Hospital

Microfiche scanning No Comments

What is a Microfiche RFP?

RFP is an abbreviation of “Request for Proposals”, or in layman’s terms: a bid for a contract. Government entities, such as cities, counties, states, and federal, in addition to education institutions seek proposals from qualified firms to provide services for microfiche conversion in accordance with the terms, conditions, and specifications contained within the bid document.

Microfiche is a analogue media which contains tiny documents. RFPs usually need the microfiche to be converted to digital image, such as TIFF or PDF. Many times they also require indexing by title bar or the fields within the actual documents. Other times, OCR searchable PDF images or text files are required. Some government offices have an existing database with the data already there, but it needs to be merged with the digital output. Images can be stored on hard drives, CDs, DVD, USB flash drives, transferred via FTP, or hosted.

Microfiche RFPs are rare compared to the larger universe of government RFPs, which have every category you could imagine, from healthcare to building walls. Sometimes they are only a small part of a government bid which has document scanning, cameras, data entry, microfilm scanning, or cloud server solutions. In addition to microfiche conversion bids, there are actually microfiche creation, microfiche duplication, and microfiche equipment and supplies RFPs.

Many RFPs have insurance, logistics, company standards,and experience requirements. Although much of it may seem like boiler plate legal templates, the government will hold you accountable for everything contained within your submitted, signed RFP document.

Major website with government RFPs are Bidsync.com, FBO.gov, RFPMart.com, and governmentbids.com.

Thousands of organizations or individuals keep track of RFPs. If you are one of them but do not have microfiche scanning capabilities (since they are rare skills), consider outsourcing to a microfiche subcontractor such as Generation Imaging. Subcontractors are not frowned up, and are even permitted in most RFPs nowadays. Generation Imaging’s microfiche scanning work is performed in the United States. Generation Imaging has the RFP experience and microfiche scanners to partner with you for a government bid contract. CONTACT US

COM Microfiche Scanning

July 16, 2009

Damian Hospital

Microfiche scanning No Comments

What is COM Microfiche Scanning?

One of the most popular types of microfiche is COM (computer output microfiche). In fact many veterans in the microfiche conversion industry have the picture of a COM microfiche in their mind when they use the word “microfiche”.

Back in the day, the micrographic industry was all about creating microfiche and microfilm. Salespeople would sell COM machines, which would out the computer data to the microfiche cards. Accessories included COM duplicator machines. COM microfiche scanning is the process of converting those cards to digital images.

Scanning COM fiche is necessary if you are working with account records contained on the fiche and you grow weary of using a microfiche reader printer or EyeCOM fiche viewer. With the images digitized and indexed, you could search for specific accounts easier.

How Many Images are on a COM microfiche?

Generally there are 208 images (16 columns x 13 rows) or 270 images (18 columns x 15 rows) on COM fiche, with some variance in-between. For example some columns may not be filled with images and some people do not count the index frames. There is a special type of COM fiche called ultrafiche, which could have hundreds more of images!

The Microfiche Scanner

Most microfiche scanners must be set up to create a grid to line-up over the microfiche card. Other scanners can create image ribbons which can be broken down into individual images. Still other scanners could take a snapshot of the entire microfiche card, however you need special software to view that type.

For most microfiche scanners, the digital format received would be single page images or multi-page images. These types are usually PDF, PDF/A, JPEG. JPEG 2000, bi-tonal Group IV TIF, uncompressed greyscale TIF, and LZW TIFF.

There are many microfiche scanners sold online. These can be bought second hand from a microfiche equipment dealer, directly from a manufacturer, or from a reseller who makes a commission from the manufacturer. In addition to buying the microfiche scanner, you may have to get a license or maintenance plan. You must know how to operate the microfiche machine, and be able to train others.

Or, you could outsource your microfiche to a microfiche scanning company who will give you a price per image (or price per card). If you are on the fence about if you should purchase a microfiche scanner or have a company scan the microfiche for you, feel free to contact us for a free estimate and guidance to help you come to a decision.

Converting Microfiche to Digital Images

July 10, 2009

Damian Hospital

Microfiche scanning No Comments

Microfiche Conversion Benefits

A microfiche scanning conversion has advantages. The resulting images can be indexed and searched easily so you can find the document you want, irregardless if you know what other files it is goes with. The images can be accessed by many people at the same time, whereas whoever has the microfiche card only has the file.

Using microfiche scanners, it is possible to transfer digital images to microfiche so in the future, someone could look all vital statistics up online. If you have microfiche, that ought to be your source for digital images, not going back to original paper documents, which can be hard to handle or may not exist.

Should You Convert All Your Microfiche?

It is easier if you image every document, and more complex if you specify which documents to image. You may do usage studies, and solicit opinions about which documents should or should not be retained. However, the safest answer is to “scan everything”.

If you decide to exclude microfiche from getting digitized, someone will think it was significant. With the cost of digital storage media and microfiche scanning at an all-time low (if you use Generation Imaging), it will cost you more to get a legal opinion to explain why. The same goes for the “How far back do I go?” question. If you have microfiche sitting around, get them scanned and out of your your way as soon as possible.

What are the Types of Microfiche Images?

We digitize microfiche to PDF, JPEG, TIFF, and their varied subtypes. They can be multipage or single page files, in folders or the root. They can be imported into any electronic document system.