While perhaps not all older technology gets replaced, a great deal of it does, for good reasons. We may find something that does the job better, or simply come up with a new version of what came before. A great example of this is the transition between microfiche documents and digital copies, which are produced by putting the former through a microfiche scanner.
Microfiche is a way of storing documents where they are scaled to extremely small sizes and then condensed into a tiny fraction of the space they would normally take up. This results in one sheet that can often contain hundreds of pages worth of text. Libraries and other places that need to store huge amounts of archival data have used this type of technology in the past, and still do so today.
Physical space is still needed to store sheets of microfiche, although it is admittedly much smaller than that needed to store full texts. They generally require special magnification equipment to be able to read them, also, due to their greatly reduced size. This can be frustrating if you are looking for something specific, because that very equipment can be awkward and imprecise.
Digital storage goes a long way toward solving many of these issues. Physical space is needed only in a very minimal capacity, meaning that accessing larger amounts of data from one location is much easier. Aside from a computer, which is more accessible to most people than a reader, no other special equipment is needed to access the documents once scanned.
The organization of the data that is converted is perhaps the largest advantage that digital formats have. Indexing and cataloging data is much easier, leading to greatly reduced search times with more detailed, specific results. Manually browsing through files is no longer a requirement, which saves many people a lot of time.
If there is a large backlog of content to convert, then the process can take a fairly large amount of time. However, it is generally a simple procedure, and the hardware available for the task has grown more advanced and less expensive. In fact, there is nearly always an overall cost reduction after a scanner is purchased, due to no longer needing to care for sometimes fragile and unreliable archival systems.
Scanners will only be able to reproduce what is already present in a document, no matter the format. Damaged or low-quality microfiche will produce a digital file that contains the same imperfections, so it is important to keep that in mind. What you start out with will be exactly the same as what you end up with, for better or for worse.
From music libraries to film collections, it seems like nearly everything that used to only exist in physical formats is now primarily digital. Extending this preservation method to important pieces of data and record-keeping is a natural step here. By using a microfiche scanner to make such records more stable and accessible, we make sure that older documents can still be used and enjoyed easily without fear of damaging or destroying them through overuse.
Microfiche is a way of storing documents where they are scaled to extremely small sizes and then condensed into a tiny fraction of the space they would normally take up. This results in one sheet that can often contain hundreds of pages worth of text. Libraries and other places that need to store huge amounts of archival data have used this type of technology in the past, and still do so today.
Physical space is still needed to store sheets of microfiche, although it is admittedly much smaller than that needed to store full texts. They generally require special magnification equipment to be able to read them, also, due to their greatly reduced size. This can be frustrating if you are looking for something specific, because that very equipment can be awkward and imprecise.
Digital storage goes a long way toward solving many of these issues. Physical space is needed only in a very minimal capacity, meaning that accessing larger amounts of data from one location is much easier. Aside from a computer, which is more accessible to most people than a reader, no other special equipment is needed to access the documents once scanned.
The organization of the data that is converted is perhaps the largest advantage that digital formats have. Indexing and cataloging data is much easier, leading to greatly reduced search times with more detailed, specific results. Manually browsing through files is no longer a requirement, which saves many people a lot of time.
If there is a large backlog of content to convert, then the process can take a fairly large amount of time. However, it is generally a simple procedure, and the hardware available for the task has grown more advanced and less expensive. In fact, there is nearly always an overall cost reduction after a scanner is purchased, due to no longer needing to care for sometimes fragile and unreliable archival systems.
Scanners will only be able to reproduce what is already present in a document, no matter the format. Damaged or low-quality microfiche will produce a digital file that contains the same imperfections, so it is important to keep that in mind. What you start out with will be exactly the same as what you end up with, for better or for worse.
From music libraries to film collections, it seems like nearly everything that used to only exist in physical formats is now primarily digital. Extending this preservation method to important pieces of data and record-keeping is a natural step here. By using a microfiche scanner to make such records more stable and accessible, we make sure that older documents can still be used and enjoyed easily without fear of damaging or destroying them through overuse.
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