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.
However, there are some issues with microfiche. There still needs to be sufficient space to store it, even though it is less than if the full texts were kept. Also, special equipment is usually needed to read it, since it is so small. Frequently, this can be very frustrating, as pinpointing precisely what you want can take time and a lot of sifting through surrounding material.
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.
Perhaps the biggest benefit is how much easier digital conversion makes organizing such records. Once scanned, they can be indexed and cataloged so that searching for something specific takes only a few moments with a keyboard and mouse. This is a vast improvement over the old days of manually flipping through hundreds of files to get what you need.
The conversion process is not difficult, in general, but it can be lengthy. This will mainly depend on how many documents need to be scanned, and what sort of shape they are in. Particularly with the decreasing cost of scanners, however, the overall cost of maintaining the records should decrease, because they will no longer need to be cared for and maintained in their physical state.
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.
However, there are some issues with microfiche. There still needs to be sufficient space to store it, even though it is less than if the full texts were kept. Also, special equipment is usually needed to read it, since it is so small. Frequently, this can be very frustrating, as pinpointing precisely what you want can take time and a lot of sifting through surrounding material.
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.
Perhaps the biggest benefit is how much easier digital conversion makes organizing such records. Once scanned, they can be indexed and cataloged so that searching for something specific takes only a few moments with a keyboard and mouse. This is a vast improvement over the old days of manually flipping through hundreds of files to get what you need.
The conversion process is not difficult, in general, but it can be lengthy. This will mainly depend on how many documents need to be scanned, and what sort of shape they are in. Particularly with the decreasing cost of scanners, however, the overall cost of maintaining the records should decrease, because they will no longer need to be cared for and maintained in their physical state.
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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