9 Important Things to Know Before Scanning Historical Documents

Scanning historical documents are not only rewarding, but it is also imperative since they may have important information and facts that you would like to preserve for a lifetime.

With digital technology and document imaging services, you can now store fragile photographs and delicate documents in the form of digital storage. As a result, they can remain safe for a very long time. No matter what kind of historical documents you possess, it is imperative that you digitize them as soon as possible. This is because such formats often degrade rapidly with the passage of time. Scanning them immediately will prevent the images from deteriorating or getting defected, faded or discolored.

Read on to discover all the tips and tricks that you should know about before scanning historical documents.

1. Managing Archive Collection

If you have plenty of historical documents that you would like to digitize, then you may like to purchase a collections management system. A collections management system is specialized software used for indexing, saving, scanning, and organizing all of your precious documents. You can preserve your images in catalogs for both private and public viewing. There are a number of programs that you can choose from with e-Museum by Gallery Systems, which is one of the most well-known ones.

Best Practices

There are certain best practices that you should implement to ensure that you will get the highest quality images at optimal resolutions. These best practices will also help you to preserve the integrity of your original documents.

Scan and digitize your documents using the highest available resolution. Make sure that you have top class scanning equipment for this purpose. It is best to avoid rescanning original documents since it will help to preserve their integrity and remain in pristine condition.
If you have a negative, then you can use it to digitize the source material and obtain the best quality images.
Create and maintain a master image file to produce copied images and serve other important purposes in the future.
Take a close look at the image formats that you are using as well as the compression techniques. They should conform to the highest standards for preserving historical documents.
Backup is absolutely critical. You should make backup copies and store them on another drive and upload the same copies to the cloud where you can retrieve them in case of a disaster.
Create metadata that is useful, relevant and intuitive so that you can find images easily.
Take a strong note of the area where you are keeping the storage medium. The area should have conditions that conform to standards for servers.
You should have a migration strategy in place for transferring your data across different generations of technology. This is critical since current technology may soon become obsolete with the rapid advancement of science.
Keep yourself updated with the latest information storage technologies and how they are evolving.

All kinds of organizations, no matter their size, can leverage the services of a historical document scanning firm to save their valuable documents. Examples of these organizations include universities, municipal governments, medical offices, and law offices.

When talking about historical documents, they need not be at par with the Declaration of Independence. Historical documents can be documents of any type that have legal significance or contain important information. For instance, they could be county land records, court documents, deed books, marriage certificates, divorce records, birth and death records, land use records, and historical drawings.

And there are other kinds of documents that do not appear to be particularly historical but could be extremely valuable later on. For instance, letters and documents written by famed scientists and researchers can assume great importance later on. They are highly sought after and can fetch tremendous sums of money. Therefore, it makes sense to store as much information as possible since you never know how valuable it will become in the coming years. For instance, if you are an administrator of a prestigious institute, you should scan and preserve handwritten notes of your highly qualified faculty members. These documents can become extremely valuable after their writers rise to fame. You can store these documents and preserve them as the proud heritage of your institute or you could even auction them for a good price if they carry that much value.

Expertise

The most important tip of all is to enlist the help of a professional who has extensive experience working with fragile photographs and old documents. Such an expert will be aware of the best ways of handling these documents so that they do not inadvertently get damaged in the process. You certainly don’t want your historical documents to become history. There is no bigger regret than losing extremely valuable and precious documents that are a rarity. The expert will know about keeping your historical documents intact while extracting the best quality images from them. They will be aware of working with appropriate formats for both archival and multimedia purposes. Their expertise can help you with large format document scanning.

Specialized equipment is necessary for working safely with fragile old documents to ensure that they are not damaged and to create the best possible copies. Historical document scanning experts possess this sophisticated equipment as well as the skill needed to operate it seamlessly.

With our services, one of the greatest benefits that you can get is being able to access your precious records from anywhere without having to handle again repeatedly – this carries the risk of damage.

To gain all of these benefits, you should get in touch with Smooth Solutions. We can preserve your documents and records digitally to safeguard them against a range of disasters. These include fires, floods, and more. You can even save plenty of space by keeping records in the digital format. Contact us today.