**[Onsite Imaging & Indexing Services]{.underline}**

**For**

**The Library of Congress**

**Copyright Office**

**Report of**

**"On-site Imaging & Indexing Demonstration"**

(Submitted to Information Systems Support)

**Prepared by**

![](media/image1.jpeg){width="2.6993055555555556in"
height="0.7090277777777778in"}

Maritta Coppieters, VP, Sales

800-288-1265, ext. 227

maritta@bslw.com

1180 South 800 East

Orem, Utah 84097

http://www.bslw.com

**I. Table of Contents**[]{#__RefHeading___Toc94091490 .anchor}

[**I.** **Table of Contents** 2](#__RefHeading___Toc94091490)

[**II.** **Summary of on-site demonstration activities**
3](#__RefHeading___Toc94091491)

[*1.* *List of personnel and equipment* 3](#__RefHeading___Toc94091492)

[*2.* *Scanning difficulties and challenges*
4](#__RefHeading___Toc94091493)

[**III.** **General comments on divisions and subsets**
5](#__RefHeading___Toc94091494)

[**IV.** **Cost/Benefits of different retrieval technologies**
6](#__RefHeading___Toc94091495)

[**V.** **Recommended approaches; Pricing**
6](#__RefHeading___Toc94091496)

[**VI.** **Anticipated difficulties & challenges for a large scale
project** 9](#__RefHeading___Toc94091497)

[**VII.** **Samples: Images & Data** 9](#__RefHeading___Toc94091498)

[*1.* *Images* 9](#__RefHeading___Toc94091499)

[*2.* *Data* 9](#__RefHeading___Toc94091500)

[**VIII.** **Conclusion** 10](#__RefHeading___Toc94091501)

**II. Summary of on-site demonstration
activities**[]{#__RefHeading___Toc94091491 .anchor}

Backstage Library Works (or BSLW) gained an understanding of the Library
of Congress Copyright Office (LCCO) need for catalog conversion in
September of 2004. BSLW learned more about the LCCO project from a
preliminary site visit in September of 2004 and from documentation
provided by Information Systems Support (ISS) after the on-site visit.
BSLW was invited to perform an on-site demonstration of its scanning
capabilities, and agreed to a four day site demonstration. BSLW's
primary purpose in the on-site demonstration was to confirm its
understanding of the project and offer a price quote for its services in
the digitization and indexing of the LCCO catalogs.

BSLW staff arrived at the LCCO for scanning purposes in October, 2004.
The catalog room had been briefly inspected during the preliminary site
visit, and the BSLW technician spent the first few hours setting up her
equipment and preparing a plan for digitization; scanning commenced on
this first day. Over the next few days, scanning continued, with no
unforeseen problems or difficulties. As in any digitization project,
there were expected challenges and concerns, but nothing out of the
ordinary for archival or catalog digitization. BSLW has scanned millions
of library cards over the past 15 years which made the process of
scanning the copyright registration cards very familiar to us.

*1. List of personnel and equipment*[]{#__RefHeading___Toc94091492
.anchor}

[Personnel]{.underline}

Kjerste Christensen was the BSLW technician assigned to the LCCO
scanning demonstration. Kjerste holds a B.A. in French and Linguistics,
with a minor in Physics, from Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah).

Kjerste is experienced in working on digitization projects both on-site
and in our home office. Kjerste is trained on the operation of a wide
range of scanners and software. As a project manager Kjerste trains
other technicians and reviews their work. Kjerste pays close attention
to the details of each project and insures that the work progresses
effectively.

Kjerste's on-site projects include:

1)  Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library System (correspondence and
    photo collections)

2)  Public Library of Anniston-Calhoun County (glass negatives)

3)  Weber State University (glass negatives)

4)  Jacksonville Public Library (photographs).

Other project experience includes:

1)  University of Maryland Law Library (publications, correspondence,
    and historical documents)

2)  Florida State University (oversize illustrations of circus costume
    designs)

3)  SUNY Albany (photograph collection)

4)  Ohio State University (Admiral Byrd Polar Expedition scrapbooks)

5)  University of Utah (Western Waters project -- bound and unbound
    text, scan & OCR)

6)  CMOA (color processing of 48-bit images taken from 35 mm slides)

7)  Children's Society of London (transcription of orphanage documents)

8)  Hamilton College (scanning and transcription of Civil War materials)

9)  Cactus and Succulent Society of America (scanning of Society
    journal)

10) Southeastern Missouri State University (Map collection for
    instructional use)

Prior to joining the scanning team at Backstage Library Works Kjerste
worked as a BSLW data technician doing MARC record processing. As a
student at BYU, Kjerste was employed as a student instructor in the
Physics department. She also has experience as a copy-to-copy editor.

[Equipment]{.underline}

As the majority of the LCCO catalogs are card format, BSLW used a color
sheetfed scanner, Fujitsu fi-5650c, for its scanning demonstration. The
Fujitsu scanner is well suited for the size and variable stock of a card
catalog. A scanning technician using the Fujitsu can process about
10,000 cards per day. BSLW finds that with card catalog scanning, the
amount of document prep required does not allow for much faster
processing than this, if any. These scanners are relatively inexpensive
and require little operating space, which would allow for several to be
used on-site at the LCCO. Ideally, a team of scanning technicians would
each work with a dedicated sheetfed scanner to process tens of thousands
of cards each day.

Due to the cost of transport and setup, BSLW did not bring the equipment
needed to digitize the bound volume catalogs for the demonstration. BSLW
recommends the use of a high speed digital cameraback (such as the Sinar
54H or Imacon 528), and an overhead reprographics station for the bound
volumes. While this equipment is more costly than a simple sheetfed
scanner, it is the least expensive way to capture archival quality
images of bound volumes.

Pricing for scanning using both the Fujitsu and the Sinar are included
in section "V. Recommended approaches; Pricing."

*2. Scanning difficulties and challenges*[]{#__RefHeading___Toc94091493
.anchor}

The difficulties involved with card catalog digitization include
document preparation, source document care, image quality, and overall
project organization.

[Document preparation]{.underline}

For the LCCO card catalog scanning, document prep included accessing the
drawers, removing staples, unfolding cards, working around divider cards
within the catalog, replacing cards, and replacing the catalog drawers.
Kjerste was able to prepare all documents for scanning during the
scanning, so BSLW does not anticipate any difficulties in scanning the
card catalog due to document preparation.

Scanning of the bound volumes will involve removing the catalogs to the
scanning station, checking each volume to allow for the care required,
scanning each page, and replacing the volumes. BSLW does not anticipate
difficulties in scanning the bound volumes due to document preparation.

[Source document care]{.underline}

While the majority of the cards scanned were in good condition, there
were some fragile cards that tore during the scanning process. BSLW
recommends that any brittle or fragile cards be scanned separately from
the sheetfed group by using the overhead camera designated for the bound
volume scanning.

When special care is required for the bound volume scanning, BSLW
recommends a book cradle, if necessary, to provide gentle handling of
the bound volumes.

[Image quality]{.underline}

During the sheetfed scanning process, some of the cards were not pulled
straight into the feeder. The cards should be fed short-edge first
(portrait orientation) rather than wide-edge first to prevent this
problem. The image clipping visible in some of the sample images is
avoidable by following this procedure. BSLW crops and deskews the images
for best presentation and most efficient storage.

[Overall project coordination]{.underline}

BSLW recommends a team of multiple scanning technicians for the LCCO
project. The coordination and supervision of such a team would require
careful project management to ensure that all catalog items are
scheduled, scanned, and the images accounted for, with no duplication of
effort or crowding of staff among the catalogs. A highly detailed and
organized approach should be applied to the project plan, including
scheduling of scanning and subsequent indexing services.

**III. General comments on divisions and
subsets**[]{#__RefHeading___Toc94091494 .anchor}

BSLW suggests that scanning the card catalog be divided into record
type, and further into drawers. The catalog is already so divided, and
BSLW does not find any advantage to dividing the catalogs into any other
subsets for scanning.

BSLW does not feel that indexing would be best suited by any other
division than record type and drawer. If the LCCO, however, finds
indexing or other processing to be beneficial in other subsets, the
record types and drawer numbers for each indexing subset may be
collected easily from the scanned sets of records and drawers.

**IV. Cost/Benefits of different retrieval
technologies**[]{#__RefHeading___Toc94091495 .anchor}

As BSLW does not offer products for electronic document management or
retrieval, we find no cost or benefit to the scanning and indexing
portion of the conversion by using one retrieval technology over
another. BSLW is able to provide its images and data in most formats and
its deliverables should be able to be loaded on almost any system.

**V. Recommended approaches; Pricing**[]{#__RefHeading___Toc94091496
.anchor}

BSLW offers the following recommended methodology and pricing.

**Library of Congress Copyright Office**

Washington, DC

Project: Copyright Office Catalog Conversion (minimum 50K items per
batch)

#######  Unit

**Service Price**

**Custom on-site profiling session** Included

**Profile verification and production samples** Included

**Scanning of card catalog, on-site**

*Typed and handwritten, 300 dpi, 24-bit color images, single sided*

Per 4"x6" card \$ 0.10

Per 8"x6" card \$ 0.12

*Typed and handwritten, 300 dpi, 24-bit color images, double sided*

Per 4"x6" card \$ 0.13

Per 8"x6" card \$ 0.16

**Scanning of bound volumes, on-site**

*300dpi, 24-bit color images*

Per single page (10K page minimum per batch) \$ 0.46

**On-site scanning costs** Included

**Scanning of microfilm, off-site**

*400 dpi bi-tonal images*

Per frame \$ 0.15

**Indexing (manual, 4-7 data elements per item, 99.9% accuracy)** \$0.75

**Indexing (manual, 8-12 data elements per item, 99.9% accuracy)**
\$1.00

**OCR text conversion (not recommended for structured data)** \$0.13 to
\$0.75 per item

*Raw OCR (estimated 99% accuracy at character level).*

**Image processing and Quality verification** Included

**Production of database media (CD or DVD)** Included

**Shipping costs** Actual

**Comprehensive Quality Guarantee** Included

> *All work done by Backstage Library Works is delivered with our
> exclusive lifetime guarantee. We will correct to the client's
> satisfaction, and at our expense, any problem with our services, no
> matter when such problem comes to light.*

**Notes to Pricing**

1.  All prices are in US dollars.

2.  Unit prices are estimates and may vary by +/- 20%.

3.  If in the course of processing the digitization, Backstage Library
    Works determines that the sample (and other information given by the
    Library) does not accurately reflect the actual composition of the
    collection, the pricing will be re-negotiated.

4.  Proposed methodology is to 1) digitize the cards and volumes
    on-site; 2) create a metadata record for each item off-site; and 3)
    process text conversion off-site.

**VI. Anticipated difficulties & challenges for a large scale
project**[]{#__RefHeading___Toc94091497 .anchor}

As a large scale project, BSLW recommends an overall project manager
supervising and acting as a liaison between the vendor and LCCO staff.
This project manager should have responsibility for imaging, both print
and microfilm, and for indexing of all materials. BSLW recommends an
environment of team members led by team leaders, with statistical
sampling on a daily basis, hourly productivity goals and requirements,
and quality verification on an individual and team level. BSLW
recommends overall quality assurance by the vendor project manager as
well as quality confirmation by the LCCO staff.

Depending on project size, BSLW may recommend hiring local labor for the
on-site scanning. Local labor would be hired, trained, and supervised by
BSLW project staff. For a large scale project, local labor management
issues should be considered, including hiring, benefits packages, and
personnel management. For smaller scale projects, BSLW would recommend
use of its current trained staff for on-site processing.

Please see "Overall project coordination," in section "II. Summary of
on-site demonstration activities" above for more comments about project
coordination.

**VII. Samples: Images & Data**[]{#__RefHeading___Toc94091498 .anchor}

BSLW offers its sample images and data in the following formats.

*1. Images*[]{#__RefHeading___Toc94091499 .anchor}

Scanned images are arranged according the file naming conventions
requested. A small sample is attached to this e-mail and the remainder
are on DVD (shipped separately).

*2. Data*[]{#__RefHeading___Toc94091500 .anchor}

BSLW sample metadata is attached to this e-mail and on DVD (shipped
separately). Indexed data is in two formats: 1) Excel spreadsheet and 2)
tab-delimited text files (both with and without quotes). Alternatively
BSLW can produce MARC records from this data, though we would have to
coordinate the MARC tagging to meet your system's requirements.

**VIII. Conclusion**[]{#__RefHeading___Toc94091501 .anchor}

BSLW appreciates the opportunity to participate in the LCCO study on the
feasibility of converting the LCCO catalogs into electronic format. We
look forward to any questions or comments and would be happy to discuss
our findings with the LCCO or ISS staff at any time.

Respectfully submitted on January 24, 2005

Maritta Coppieters

Vice President, Sales

Backstage Library Works