Corporate Documents
Financial RecordsCheques
Each day, cheques received by the University Cashier are imaged prior to banking. The images produced are multi-page B/W TIFs @200dpi which include front and back of each cheque and banking batch documentation.
Typical file sizes can range from 630kb for 55 cheques to 3mb for 237 cheques.
This service provides almost instant access to these images for FinOps staff in the event of a discrepancy or dispute with the bank. Upon request, the image for the banking day in question is attached and emailed to the requestor within minutes.
Invoices
Several times daily, invoices are scanned and delivered to FinOps via FTP. The images produced are multi-page B/W TIFs @200dpi.
This service provides the images for Themis. The Imaging Centre has been providing this service since Themis AP-Imaging went “live” on August 4 th 2004.
In March 2007, 9613 invoices were scanned. This represents 17,357 images processed and 17,268 images released.
Legal Agreements/Research Contracts
The Imaging Centre produces image files of legal agreements from a variety of sources – Central Records, Melbourne Research Office and Financial Operations. All of these images are stored and accessed using TRIM (corporate electronic document management system). Research contracts and legal agreements with financial implications are also accessed through Themis.
The images produced are multi-page B/W searchable PDFs @200dpi. The documents are scanned at 300dpi to improve the OCR hit rate and then scaled down to 200dpi equivalent to produce smaller files.
The documents are prepared for scanning in the originating office. The Imaging Centre endeavours to scan the documents and deliver the images to Central Records within 24 hours of receipt.
Minutes
In September 2006, source document microfilming of unbound minutes ceased in favour of scanning with dual outputs – searchable PDFs for access and multi-page TIFs to produce microfilm on an archive writer.
Historical approach
The Imaging Centre has been producing archival microfilm of the minutes of Council and key committees for many years. This microfilm has been on the 35mm format for retrospective capture of bound volumes and on 16mm for minutes captured prior to binding.
- Kodak rotary camera captures both sides of 3,200 A4 pages @40:1
- Each film features documentation ie. technical targets and statutory declaration
- Film processed on site
- Duplicate made at AMS
- Reference to images via microfilm scanner on site
Present approach
- Scanners capture documents @300dpi in greyscale
- Images are optimised for readability then output in B/W @300dpi
- Scanners capture only the pages required (no blank back pages)
- TIF images sent to a service bureau on CD for writing to microfilm using Kodak Archive Writer
- Each film features documentation ie. technical targets, table of contents and statutory declaration
- Each thin base film contains up to 6,500 pages @24:1
- Reference using searchable PDFs
Advantages of this new production method
Image quality:
A comparison of the way each production method captures problematic original documents shows a general increase in readability particularly in areas where shading or colour has been used. When filming, there is no adjustment for image appearance. If scanning, poor images can be improved during the normal workflow – so that the appearance of the final product is apparent.
Completeness:
When microfilming, overlapped documents (missing pages) cannot be detected until quality control (a process which in itself is not proof against human error). The remedy is refilming and splicing-in of a whole section of film. When scanning, completeness of capture is verified immediately – in more ways than one ie. the scanner has a better document feed mechanism with ultrasonic double-feed alarm and software counts images so application of a simple formula will tell if a page is missing. Pagination is also checked.
Packing density:
Although the preferred format for writing images to film is 24:1, the use of thin base film and the omission of blank pages ensures more pages will be captured on a 33M digital output film than on the camera.
Access:
The scanning system produces multi-page TIFs of each meeting which are used by the Archive Writer, but also produces searchable PDFs which are far more user-friendly to access than microfilm and have the added value of being searchable through OCR.