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In terms of scanners, are there models that can handle odd-sized books and ledgers, many in fragile condition? This is where many old vital records and document

In terms of scanners, are there models that can handle odd-sized books and ledgers, many in fragile condition? This is where many old vital records and documents reside. Another issue for indexing: 18th, 19th and early 20th century handwriting styles. Many clerks had good handwriting, but with lots of variation in style, written over printed templates (marriage certificates, property and tax records, etc). How good are modern OCR technologies recognizing variations in handwriting?

superhuzza 8y ago
1. If documents are odd sized, or fragile, cameras usually the best choice for digitization. Doesn't have to touch the pages, software can handle differently sized formats etc. 2. OCR still isn't even 100% accurate for printed text. Handwritten text accuracy is worse. Cursive is even less accurate.
justin66 8y ago
There are a few different levels of digitization here if you're talking about something like a county clerk or a state office or something. You can digitize the documents with OCR (or by hand) and process them with a level of precision great enough that you can archive or destroy the original documents and just print out a new document when you need it. One example would be the states that no longer issue a "real" birth certificate and just print one out on official letterhead when there is a demand. You can index the documents and stuff them in the basement, which is pretty much the default for many county records. The computer is basically equivalent to a card catalog in that case. The database might very well be a scanned card catalog... You can make a nice, pretty, OCR-enabled picture of the original document and store it on a database. Searchability can vary. Things like signatures and cursive writing will often just need to be interpreted by a human during the process of digitization. If such records aren't important enough to justify a few minutes of someone's time, they might not ever be digitized. There's a lot of variance here. A state agency like a Department of Motor Vehicles has a strong motivation to make things more efficient and the advantage that none of the records are really ancient. A county clerk in a poor, rural county has completely different resources and needs.

superhuzza 8y ago

1. If documents are odd sized, or fragile, cameras usually the best choice for digitization. Doesn't have to touch the pages, software can handle differently sized formats etc. 2. OCR still isn't even 100% accurate for printed text. Handwritten text accuracy is worse. Cursive is even less accurate.

justin66 8y ago

There are a few different levels of digitization here if you're talking about something like a county clerk or a state office or something. You can digitize the documents with OCR (or by hand) and process them with a level of precision great enough that you can archive or destroy the original documents and just print out a new document when you need it. One example would be the states that no longer issue a "real" birth certificate and just print one out on official letterhead when there is a demand. You can index the documents and stuff them in the basement, which is pretty much the default for many county records. The computer is basically equivalent to a card catalog in that case. The database might very well be a scanned card catalog... You can make a nice, pretty, OCR-enabled picture of the original document and store it on a database. Searchability can vary. Things like signatures and cursive writing will often just need to be interpreted by a human during the process of digitization. If such records aren't important enough to justify a few minutes of someone's time, they might not ever be digitized. There's a lot of variance here. A state agency like a Department of Motor Vehicles has a strong motivation to make things more efficient and the advantage that none of the records are really ancient. A county clerk in a poor, rural county has completely different resources and needs.