Archive for the ‘Digitization Products’ Category
The Shape of “Qool”: Qidenus V-Shaped Book Scanners
Editor’s note: This week’s blogger is Crowley marketing assistant, Camily Bishop. New to the industry, her insights offer a fresh perspective. Archives are timeless. The digital imaging industry is not. Companies seeking to stay at the forefront are changing shape, adapting to and creating new technologies constantly. To keep us on the edge, Crowley hardware, imaging, marketing and support specialists regularly receive in-depth training on the latest scanning innovations of the company’s manufactured and distributed brands. This week’s training…
Digitized Propaganda Posters Bring Wartime to Life
As we looked for just the right Crowley tie-in with Monday’s Veterans Day celebration, we came across the following webpage from Washington State University (WSU). The page, which features WSU Libraries Digital Collections, discusses the digitization of propaganda posters from the World Wars. These posters are a unique reminder of a time when the sacrifices of war extended beyond the battlefield to each citizen’s front door. They also remind us at Crowley how grateful we are to those who serve…
Using Zeutschel Scanners to Document the Papers of Abraham Lincoln
Editor’s note: October is American Archives Month and a reminder of how important the records of our past are to our future. To celebrate, we’re highlighting five conversion projects throughout the month. Last week we featured Time Life’s LIFE magazine photo archive. Nearly 10M photographic images of iconic American figures were digitized by Crowley Imaging and made available to the public via Google hosting. Today’s blog features the paper archives of our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln. “I am a…
The True Cost of Ownership: Used Scanners
Over the last two weeks, the imaging experts at Crowley have explored the true cost of ownership of production-level digital scanners. Remember, not all scanners are created equal and comparisons must take more factors into consideration than just price. The true cost of ownership looks past the price tag, comparing scanners using a number of different factors, including accuracy, productivity, maintenance, consumable costs, repairs and more. This got us thinking about the true cost of ownership of used scanners. Like…
The Down Low on TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), Part 2
In last week’s blog, we set forth the premise that not all scanners are created equal. There is much more to consider at purchase than the quoted price. After more than three decades of selling and manufacturing digital and analog imaging systems, The Crowley Company has developed a three-point system for clients to discover the true cost of hardware ownership: accuracy, productivity and the true total cost. We discussed accuracy – how well the scanner or equipment performs to…
The Down Low on TCO (True Cost of Ownership) Part 1
In more than thirty years of demonstrating production-level digital scanners and analog equipment to clients worldwide, Crowley has found that one fact has remained constant: comparisons are very rarely apples-to-apples. Once the client need has been clarified (fodder for another blog), there are often multiple scanner options available. Sometimes they’re ours. Sometimes they’re not. Always, though, we encourage prospective buyers to consider the true cost of owning a scanner – including the hidden variables – just as you would…
The Growing Use of Patron Scanners
Patron scanners, like the Zeutschel OS 12000 Bookcopy, the Zeutschel zeta and Wicks and Wilson UScan, are growing in popularity for many reasons. These scanners provide users an easy-to-operate walk-up experience – similar to that of a paper copier or microfilm reader/printer– but one that offers higher technology, lower maintenance, more features, media protection via gentle handling functionality and green benefits. Patron scanners, or “on-demand” scanners as they are called in the industry, are increasingly found in academic libraries, records/vital…
Can We Get a Resolution? Taking a Closer Look at Image Quality and DPI
Last week, in our blog, “Can We Get A Resolution? The mystery of the “right” DPI/PPI,” we explored the question, “What is the Right dpi/ppi?” The bottom line is that dpi/ppi is not “one size fits all.” As Christopher Crowley, our company president noted, “the right dpi/ppi is really a balancing act between the expected end use of the file (archival vs. non), the cost of file storage, the cost of bandwidth to share/transmit files, the cost of equipment to…
Can We Get a Resolution? The mystery of the “right” DPI/PPI.
In our previous blog, we spoke about the continued importance of microfilm in the battle to preserve our most important documents, books and other archives and records. Now we’ll focus on another facet of the preservation equation: resolution. Specifically, “What is the Right DPI/PPI?” To be fair, you won’t find a definitive or unanimous answer anywhere. However, we’ve recently read an excellent blog post by The United States Library of Congress (LOC), which got us thinking about our own experiences…