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AIIM Golden Gate Chapter
                                      Headlines
                                                              1. Convert and pre-load all documents in the back file
Welcome
                                                                   into the system prior to going live.
Happy New Year from the Golden Gate Chapter!                  2. Convert only the most recent “documents” that are
                                                                   being used (convert all “live” documents up to 1
Welcome to this issue of Headlines – a quarterly
                                                                   year) and then convert documents only as they are
newsletter for AIIM Golden Gate Chapter members.
                                                                   requested. All other existing documents remain in
This issue of Headlines is devoted to the subject of               their original format, unless requested.
document conversion – whether the documents are film,         3. Don’t convert anything and bring into the system
paper, or electronic such as MS Word. As many of you               only new items beginning on a “day forward” basis.
already know, document conversion can be a time and                Convert any documents requested “on-demand.”
resource intensive project and without proper planning        4. Some variation of the above: convert in-house
things can quickly go awry.                                        documents up to 6 months old for the initial system
                                                                   release and outsource the remaining documents.
Is seems that document imaging and document
                                                              Considerations: Determining which files to convert is an
management is being reconsidered by many companies
                                                              exercise in their usage and how much money is allocated
that may have initially thought it too expensive or not
                                                              to the project. If budget and time are not a consideration,
yet capable of satisfying their needs. And there is also an
                                                              converting everything may be the way to go. Many
increase in the number of companies that are trying to
                                                              companies, however, realize that converting everything
satisfy compliance regulations and the need for records
                                                              is not feasible because some documents are seldom
management.
                                                              accessed or may be nearing the end of their retention
When thinking about implementing a document                   period. It may not make financial sense to convert a
management system, think about all the file cabinets,         series of documents only to delete them within a year.
boxes, and warehouses full of paper and filmed                Permanent retention documents should be converted as
documents; all of the electronic documents stored on          they may be part of the business continuity plan.
personal drives, shared drives, networked drives, and all
                                                              It is important to have the new document management
of the various media now used to store our files. The
                                                              system loaded with documents when it becomes
question is: What do I convert and how do I do that?
                                                              operational. A good conversion strategy will ensure that
This issue is designed to get you thinking about the          the needed documents are available.
conversion process and maybe even answer some
                                                              As part of the document conversion project, consider
questions - but it only a starting place. Also, we are
                                                              whether to implement records management procedures
sponsoring a presentation on January 25, see Calendar
                                                              and if so, additional indexing information may be
below, about document conversion strategies and
                                                              required to match the documents with your file or
technologies, which may help you to plan your
                                                              retention plan. If records management is the principal
conversion project.
                                                              reason for undertaking this project, make sure it is
Document Conversion Strategies                                adequately described in your RFP or RFQ.
Introduction                                                  Table of Contents
One of the most important considerations for an               Welcome ........................................................................1
enterprise content management (ECM) project is                Document Conversion Strategies ..................................1
whether to convert existing documents or not. If we           Document Conversion Formats ......................................3
consider a hypothetical situation in which an ECM             The Question...................................................................4
system (paper files and electronic files) goes live on a      Did You Know?..............................................................4
Monday morning, how will the business users of the            GG Chapter News ..........................................................4
system use the system?                                        Committees.....................................................................4
                                                              Calendar..........................................................................5
There are many choices that can be made, but below are
the most common options when considering a backfile
conversion project:
                                                   January 2006 - 1
AIIM Golden Gate Chapter
                                     Headlines
                                                                  Make sure you understand that an ECM conversion
Issues to Consider
                                                                  project may involve film (roll film, microfiche, or
Not only do you have to consider one of the options
                                                                  aperture cards), paper documents, electronic documents
above, but one of the following must be decided upon –
                                                                  (Excel, PowerPoint, Word, CAD system drawings, etc.),
if you are going to do a conversion:                              as well as converting existing document images from
                                                                  one system/format to another system/format.
1. Do the conversion in-house with your own system
   and people resources.
                                                                  While film is somewhat easier to work with, from a
                                                                  conversion point of view, it is still a physical media and
2. Hire an outsourcing company to do the backfile
                                                                  can be subject to loss or damage. Film that has not been
   conversion for you. If so, will the conversion be
                                                                  stored properly may have problems and the images may
   done on your premises or be done off-site?
                                                                  not be acceptable. You may also have paper that is not in
3. Some combination of the two above.
                                                                  acceptable condition and will require special prep work
Given the above decisions to be made – whether to                 prior to scanning.
convert and how to convert – you will also need to
                                                                  Before getting started and sending all your paper, film,
consider the following before any work can be done:
                                                                  and electronic data to the conversion specialist, also
1. How to properly name and index the documents                   think about how you are going to ensure the documents
   being converted.                                               are actually:
2. Whether to OCR (optical character recognition)                 1. Scanned or converted to an acceptable image that is
   image files instead of indexing them or in addition to            as readable as the original. Image quality control is
   indexing them.                                                    of primary importance, especially if the original
                                                                     documents are being destroyed after the scanning
3. If the conversion is subcontracted, how to get the
                                                                     project is complete. Also consider that looking at a
   data to the subcontractor?
                                                                     document on a computer screen is different from
4. If the conversion is subcontracted, how to get the                looking at a piece of paper.
   electronic data back to your company and loaded
                                                                  2. The quality measurement has to be agreed upon
   onto your new system ?
                                                                     prior to any scanning or conversion. This should
5. Whether the conversion is subcontracted or not,                   involve test runs, samples, and corrections until you
   what to do with the paper and/or film files after they            feel the quality is acceptable.
   have been scanned?
                                                                  3. If the vendor is scanning 50,000 pages a day and
And not to let you off too easily, you may also consider             putting them up on your system, how will you
the following:                                                       quality review 50,000 pages? Watch those
                                                                     bottlenecks!
1. If subcontracting, how many of the “original” paper
   or film documents do you release to the vendor?                4. Image quality is not the only QC area – if an image
   Think disaster recovery here.                                     is mis-indexed, it is essentially lost forever. Indexing
                                                                     must be part of the QC process and is as important
2. What happens when you need one of the documents
                                                                     as the image quality itself.
   that is being converted? How do you get it back and
   how quickly? Make sure you cover all the possible              5. Remember that paper and film may not be the only
   contingencies in your contract if you use a                       documents being converted – if you are converting a
   conversion company.                                               1,000,000 Microsoft Word files, correctly indexing
                                                                     is mandatory.
3. Some companies will scan your documents locally
   but send the digitized image off-shore for indexing,           Finally, prior to starting, should you purge/delete files
   QC, and other operations. This may or may not be a             before sending them to be converted or should you
   consideration to review with your management.                  convert first and purge later? It would seem obvious that
                                                                  you would purge/delete first – after all, why spend a

                                                       January 2006 - 2
AIIM Golden Gate Chapter
                                      Headlines
time and money to convert a document and then delete              conversion vendor. If a major hiccup occurs while your
it? Well, in some cases it may be faster to actually delete       project is in full swing, it may have a serious impact on
images after they have been scanned and this may                  your business operations.
provide a lower overall project cost. It may not be
                                                                  On a brighter note, conversion is often a clean, fast, and
physically possible to assemble all of the boxes
                                                                  painless way to get thousands to millions of documents
containing paper documents and manually go through
                                                                  off the shelf, out of Iron Mountain, and into your new
them. On the other hand, if you have a good records
                                                                  ECM system. Outsourcing can be very affordable and
management system and know that you are behind on
                                                                  may be less costly overall than you could provide
deleting files, the RM system could be used to ensure
                                                                  internally.
that all files ready to be destroyed are, and are not sent
over to the conversion house.                                     Document Conversion Formats
Electronic Document Conversions                                   The other, and perhaps more complex question is - if
                                                                  you start down this path of converting physical or
Document conversion can also include your existing
                                                                  electronic documents for archival storage, what format
electronic documents such as Microsoft Office Word,
                                                                  do you convert the documents to?
Excel, PowerPoint; it may include Adobe PDF
documents; and it may include engineering drawing                 Will these documents be readable in 5 years, 20 years, or
documents. The conversion can have several facets –               100 years? How many of us today can load and read our
you may simply be loading/converting existing                     old Wang disks? And if you could read the disk, do you
documents into a document management system (DMS)                 have the Wang software to allow you to access the file?
or you may be loading documents into a DMS and                    There are potentially two (or more) separate issues: (1)
converting them from MS Word to PDF/A or even to                  will software programs be available to read the data
TIFF (Tagged Image File Format – which is an                      when needed at some future date and (2) will hardware
electronic conversion of MS Word documents to a bit-              change such that I no longer have the correct physical
mapped image format just as if you had scanned them).             drive to load the archived data? Could you read a 5 ¼ “
                                                                  diskette today?
As part of the conversion, you may also be trying to
                                                                  •
process the electronic documents into a records
                                                                      If scanning, is TIFF going to be a readable format in
management system (RMS) that can either be part of the
                                                                      50 years?
DMS or a separate system by itself.
                                                                  •   If storing Microsoft documents is Word going to be
While it may seem a simple process to “load” MS Word                  readable in 50 years?
files into an ECM, it is quite complex and requires a fair
                                                                  •   If I go to PDF, is PDF going to be readable in 50
amount of planning and isolating the metadata to be used
                                                                      years? Or the new PDF/A (Archive)
in the conversion process. You may also consider how to
treat duplicate files that are spread across drives and           As of today, there is no “good” answer to these
such things as files on personal drives or all of the files       questions. Adobe is working on PDF/A or, PDF Archive
that are stored on CDs and DVDs.                                  to become an international standard but, Microsoft is
                                                                  also working on this issue and has released “Metro,”
Summary
                                                                  which Microsoft hopes will compete with Adobe’s PDF
This short article only touches on some of the                    format. Some companies are exploring other options
considerations but is in no way a complete checklist.             with data formats that they hope will become
Prior to undertaking any conversion project, identify             “standards” for the archive and display of documents,
several conversion companies in you local geographic              images, photographs and all other stored digital media.
area (see The Question below)and meet with them at
                                                                  Some companies have considered archiving a full copy
their facility, explain your project, and try to get any
                                                                  of the application software with each type document
planning materials that they have for review. It is
                                                                  stored and have included the physical drive in their
absolutely essential that you have a firm project plan
                                                                  plans. CDs and DVDs have not be physically around for
prior to sending thousands of pages a month to a
                                                                  50 or 100 years to prove that they will be readable and
                                                       January 2006 - 3
AIIM Golden Gate Chapter
                                     Headlines
there is some evidence that CDs and DVDs may not hold          Record Preservation & Management Co
up over the years. Although magnetic tape has been used        Oakland, CA
for a number of years, it is subject to breaking and may       www.rpmco.biz
loose data after 15 years, which means that tapes need to
                                                               Soft File
be refreshed periodically.
                                                               Sacramento, CA
What will become the final standard (if there will be          www.softfile.com
one) is not yet known. In the meantime, stick with the
                                                               Did You Know?
standards in the industry – which includes PAPER or
FILM based media, TIFF for scanned documents and               The following facts are “thumbnail” estimates:
PDF for electronic documents. Many companies with
                                                               1 scanned page (8 1/2 by 11 inches, A4) = 50 KiloBytes
long-term archival needs continue to use microfilm as
                                                               (KByte) (on average, black & white, ITU G4 compressed)
the accepted method for storing documents as it may be
viewed without computer-based equipment.                       1 file cabinet (4 drawer) (10,000 pages on average) = 500
                                                               MegaBytes (MByte) = 1 CD (Compact Disc)
The Question
                                                               1 box (in inches: 15 1/2 long x 12 wide x 10 deep) (400 x 300
I have a document conversion project but have no idea          x 250 mm) (2,500 pages) = 1 file drawer = 125 MBytes
where to start and how to find companies in the Bay            1 linear inch = 100 pages = 5 MBytes
Area. Can you help?
                                                               42 linear feet = 50,000 pages = 2.5 Gigabytes
There are a number of local companies that provide
                                                               1 roll of 16 mm microfilm (100 ft) @ 24X reduction = 2,500
conversion services in the San Francisco Bay Area.
                                                               letter size images = 1 box = 1 file cabinet drawer = 125
Below is a list of companies that we could find but it
                                                               MBytes
may not be a complete list. In addition, you may ask the
                                                               Special Note: 1 two-side physical page is 2 images.
vendor that is supplying your document management
system as they may have a list of conversion companies
                                                               Golden Gate Chapter News
that they work with or recommend.
                                                               The Chapter is always looking for help and ideas for
ATI
                                                               programs and educational events. If you have a good
Milpitas, CA
                                                               document management or records management case
www.ati-imaging.com
                                                               study and would like to share it, give us a call.
BMI Imaging Services
                                                               Committees
Sunnyvale, CA
www.bmiimaging.com
                                                               The AIIM Golden Gate Chapter is looking for a Program
                                                               Manager to help us develop and organize new programs,
DataBank IMX
                                                               events, and presentations. If interested, please contact
Hayward, CA
                                                               Bud Porter-Roth at budpr@erms.com.
www.databankimx.com
                                                               Want to set the direction on where the ECM and DM
Fort Docs
                                                               industry will go? Then join one of the many committees
Santa Rosa, CA
                                                               that is hosted run by AIIM.
www.ftdocs.com
                                                               For more information, go to:
Lason, Inc.
                                                               http://www.aiim.org/standards.asp
San Francisco
www.lason.com
Peelle Technologies
Campbell, CA
www.peelletech.com


                                                    January 2006 - 4
AIIM Golden Gate Chapter
                                     Headlines
                                                                ----------------------------------------------------------
Calendar
                                                                If there is a topic you would like to see addressed in a
January 25th, 2006
                                                                future newsletter, please contact one of the board
AIIM Golden Gate Chapter
                                                                members:
Document Conversion Technologies
                                                                President
                                                                Bud Porter-Roth
The AIIM Golden Gate Chapter is hosting a double
                                                                415-381-6217
feature on January 25, 2006. The topic is document
                                                                budpr@erms.com
conversion strategies and technologies. This includes
both paper documents and electronic documents. We               Vice President
will have two speakers: The first speaker will talk about       Chris Cowger
document conversion strategies - how to organize your           510-494-7315
conversion effort, what to convert, and how move                cowger@sciosinc.com
forward with the conversion effort. The second speaker
                                                                Treasurer
will talk about conversion formats for documents
                                                                Tom Hughes
including PDF-A, XML, TIFF, and other choices you
                                                                925-376-7365
may have.
                                                                TomEHughes@aol.com
Lunch will be provided.
                                                                Secretary
There is a Registration Form included with this                 Laurel McAdams
newsletter. Please complete for each person who will            510-477-3490
attend so that we have accurate lunch and attendance            lmcadams@imagemax.com
counts.
                                                                Membership Chair
The meeting will be held in San Francisco at 425 Market         Paul Brighton
Street, Room 20240 on the 20th floor from 11:30 AM to           707-745-8658
1:30 PM. This is an IBM facility and you will have to           pbright654@earthlink.net
check-in with security and will need a photo ID card.
                                                                Programs Chair
Several vendors that specialize in document conversions         Open (Please inquire about this position)
will be present with information and literature.
                                                                AIIM/ARMA CHAPTER LIASON
SPECIAL: Paying Members may bring one guest                     Chris Cowger
         FREE                                                   510-494-7315
                                                                cowger@sciosinc.com
                                                                You may also navigate to our chapter web page:
                                                                http://www.aiim.org/chapters/goldengate.asp?ID=2
                                                                6297
                                                                © 2006 AIIM Golden Gate Chapter
                                                                All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
                                                                reproduced or used in any form or by any means, graphic,
                                                                electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
                                                                recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval
                                                                systems without the written permission.




                                                     January 2006 - 5

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January 2006 Headlines Newsletter

  • 1. AIIM Golden Gate Chapter Headlines 1. Convert and pre-load all documents in the back file Welcome into the system prior to going live. Happy New Year from the Golden Gate Chapter! 2. Convert only the most recent “documents” that are being used (convert all “live” documents up to 1 Welcome to this issue of Headlines – a quarterly year) and then convert documents only as they are newsletter for AIIM Golden Gate Chapter members. requested. All other existing documents remain in This issue of Headlines is devoted to the subject of their original format, unless requested. document conversion – whether the documents are film, 3. Don’t convert anything and bring into the system paper, or electronic such as MS Word. As many of you only new items beginning on a “day forward” basis. already know, document conversion can be a time and Convert any documents requested “on-demand.” resource intensive project and without proper planning 4. Some variation of the above: convert in-house things can quickly go awry. documents up to 6 months old for the initial system release and outsource the remaining documents. Is seems that document imaging and document Considerations: Determining which files to convert is an management is being reconsidered by many companies exercise in their usage and how much money is allocated that may have initially thought it too expensive or not to the project. If budget and time are not a consideration, yet capable of satisfying their needs. And there is also an converting everything may be the way to go. Many increase in the number of companies that are trying to companies, however, realize that converting everything satisfy compliance regulations and the need for records is not feasible because some documents are seldom management. accessed or may be nearing the end of their retention When thinking about implementing a document period. It may not make financial sense to convert a management system, think about all the file cabinets, series of documents only to delete them within a year. boxes, and warehouses full of paper and filmed Permanent retention documents should be converted as documents; all of the electronic documents stored on they may be part of the business continuity plan. personal drives, shared drives, networked drives, and all It is important to have the new document management of the various media now used to store our files. The system loaded with documents when it becomes question is: What do I convert and how do I do that? operational. A good conversion strategy will ensure that This issue is designed to get you thinking about the the needed documents are available. conversion process and maybe even answer some As part of the document conversion project, consider questions - but it only a starting place. Also, we are whether to implement records management procedures sponsoring a presentation on January 25, see Calendar and if so, additional indexing information may be below, about document conversion strategies and required to match the documents with your file or technologies, which may help you to plan your retention plan. If records management is the principal conversion project. reason for undertaking this project, make sure it is Document Conversion Strategies adequately described in your RFP or RFQ. Introduction Table of Contents One of the most important considerations for an Welcome ........................................................................1 enterprise content management (ECM) project is Document Conversion Strategies ..................................1 whether to convert existing documents or not. If we Document Conversion Formats ......................................3 consider a hypothetical situation in which an ECM The Question...................................................................4 system (paper files and electronic files) goes live on a Did You Know?..............................................................4 Monday morning, how will the business users of the GG Chapter News ..........................................................4 system use the system? Committees.....................................................................4 Calendar..........................................................................5 There are many choices that can be made, but below are the most common options when considering a backfile conversion project: January 2006 - 1
  • 2. AIIM Golden Gate Chapter Headlines Make sure you understand that an ECM conversion Issues to Consider project may involve film (roll film, microfiche, or Not only do you have to consider one of the options aperture cards), paper documents, electronic documents above, but one of the following must be decided upon – (Excel, PowerPoint, Word, CAD system drawings, etc.), if you are going to do a conversion: as well as converting existing document images from one system/format to another system/format. 1. Do the conversion in-house with your own system and people resources. While film is somewhat easier to work with, from a conversion point of view, it is still a physical media and 2. Hire an outsourcing company to do the backfile can be subject to loss or damage. Film that has not been conversion for you. If so, will the conversion be stored properly may have problems and the images may done on your premises or be done off-site? not be acceptable. You may also have paper that is not in 3. Some combination of the two above. acceptable condition and will require special prep work Given the above decisions to be made – whether to prior to scanning. convert and how to convert – you will also need to Before getting started and sending all your paper, film, consider the following before any work can be done: and electronic data to the conversion specialist, also 1. How to properly name and index the documents think about how you are going to ensure the documents being converted. are actually: 2. Whether to OCR (optical character recognition) 1. Scanned or converted to an acceptable image that is image files instead of indexing them or in addition to as readable as the original. Image quality control is indexing them. of primary importance, especially if the original documents are being destroyed after the scanning 3. If the conversion is subcontracted, how to get the project is complete. Also consider that looking at a data to the subcontractor? document on a computer screen is different from 4. If the conversion is subcontracted, how to get the looking at a piece of paper. electronic data back to your company and loaded 2. The quality measurement has to be agreed upon onto your new system ? prior to any scanning or conversion. This should 5. Whether the conversion is subcontracted or not, involve test runs, samples, and corrections until you what to do with the paper and/or film files after they feel the quality is acceptable. have been scanned? 3. If the vendor is scanning 50,000 pages a day and And not to let you off too easily, you may also consider putting them up on your system, how will you the following: quality review 50,000 pages? Watch those bottlenecks! 1. If subcontracting, how many of the “original” paper or film documents do you release to the vendor? 4. Image quality is not the only QC area – if an image Think disaster recovery here. is mis-indexed, it is essentially lost forever. Indexing must be part of the QC process and is as important 2. What happens when you need one of the documents as the image quality itself. that is being converted? How do you get it back and how quickly? Make sure you cover all the possible 5. Remember that paper and film may not be the only contingencies in your contract if you use a documents being converted – if you are converting a conversion company. 1,000,000 Microsoft Word files, correctly indexing is mandatory. 3. Some companies will scan your documents locally but send the digitized image off-shore for indexing, Finally, prior to starting, should you purge/delete files QC, and other operations. This may or may not be a before sending them to be converted or should you consideration to review with your management. convert first and purge later? It would seem obvious that you would purge/delete first – after all, why spend a January 2006 - 2
  • 3. AIIM Golden Gate Chapter Headlines time and money to convert a document and then delete conversion vendor. If a major hiccup occurs while your it? Well, in some cases it may be faster to actually delete project is in full swing, it may have a serious impact on images after they have been scanned and this may your business operations. provide a lower overall project cost. It may not be On a brighter note, conversion is often a clean, fast, and physically possible to assemble all of the boxes painless way to get thousands to millions of documents containing paper documents and manually go through off the shelf, out of Iron Mountain, and into your new them. On the other hand, if you have a good records ECM system. Outsourcing can be very affordable and management system and know that you are behind on may be less costly overall than you could provide deleting files, the RM system could be used to ensure internally. that all files ready to be destroyed are, and are not sent over to the conversion house. Document Conversion Formats Electronic Document Conversions The other, and perhaps more complex question is - if you start down this path of converting physical or Document conversion can also include your existing electronic documents for archival storage, what format electronic documents such as Microsoft Office Word, do you convert the documents to? Excel, PowerPoint; it may include Adobe PDF documents; and it may include engineering drawing Will these documents be readable in 5 years, 20 years, or documents. The conversion can have several facets – 100 years? How many of us today can load and read our you may simply be loading/converting existing old Wang disks? And if you could read the disk, do you documents into a document management system (DMS) have the Wang software to allow you to access the file? or you may be loading documents into a DMS and There are potentially two (or more) separate issues: (1) converting them from MS Word to PDF/A or even to will software programs be available to read the data TIFF (Tagged Image File Format – which is an when needed at some future date and (2) will hardware electronic conversion of MS Word documents to a bit- change such that I no longer have the correct physical mapped image format just as if you had scanned them). drive to load the archived data? Could you read a 5 ¼ “ diskette today? As part of the conversion, you may also be trying to • process the electronic documents into a records If scanning, is TIFF going to be a readable format in management system (RMS) that can either be part of the 50 years? DMS or a separate system by itself. • If storing Microsoft documents is Word going to be While it may seem a simple process to “load” MS Word readable in 50 years? files into an ECM, it is quite complex and requires a fair • If I go to PDF, is PDF going to be readable in 50 amount of planning and isolating the metadata to be used years? Or the new PDF/A (Archive) in the conversion process. You may also consider how to treat duplicate files that are spread across drives and As of today, there is no “good” answer to these such things as files on personal drives or all of the files questions. Adobe is working on PDF/A or, PDF Archive that are stored on CDs and DVDs. to become an international standard but, Microsoft is also working on this issue and has released “Metro,” Summary which Microsoft hopes will compete with Adobe’s PDF This short article only touches on some of the format. Some companies are exploring other options considerations but is in no way a complete checklist. with data formats that they hope will become Prior to undertaking any conversion project, identify “standards” for the archive and display of documents, several conversion companies in you local geographic images, photographs and all other stored digital media. area (see The Question below)and meet with them at Some companies have considered archiving a full copy their facility, explain your project, and try to get any of the application software with each type document planning materials that they have for review. It is stored and have included the physical drive in their absolutely essential that you have a firm project plan plans. CDs and DVDs have not be physically around for prior to sending thousands of pages a month to a 50 or 100 years to prove that they will be readable and January 2006 - 3
  • 4. AIIM Golden Gate Chapter Headlines there is some evidence that CDs and DVDs may not hold Record Preservation & Management Co up over the years. Although magnetic tape has been used Oakland, CA for a number of years, it is subject to breaking and may www.rpmco.biz loose data after 15 years, which means that tapes need to Soft File be refreshed periodically. Sacramento, CA What will become the final standard (if there will be www.softfile.com one) is not yet known. In the meantime, stick with the Did You Know? standards in the industry – which includes PAPER or FILM based media, TIFF for scanned documents and The following facts are “thumbnail” estimates: PDF for electronic documents. Many companies with 1 scanned page (8 1/2 by 11 inches, A4) = 50 KiloBytes long-term archival needs continue to use microfilm as (KByte) (on average, black & white, ITU G4 compressed) the accepted method for storing documents as it may be viewed without computer-based equipment. 1 file cabinet (4 drawer) (10,000 pages on average) = 500 MegaBytes (MByte) = 1 CD (Compact Disc) The Question 1 box (in inches: 15 1/2 long x 12 wide x 10 deep) (400 x 300 I have a document conversion project but have no idea x 250 mm) (2,500 pages) = 1 file drawer = 125 MBytes where to start and how to find companies in the Bay 1 linear inch = 100 pages = 5 MBytes Area. Can you help? 42 linear feet = 50,000 pages = 2.5 Gigabytes There are a number of local companies that provide 1 roll of 16 mm microfilm (100 ft) @ 24X reduction = 2,500 conversion services in the San Francisco Bay Area. letter size images = 1 box = 1 file cabinet drawer = 125 Below is a list of companies that we could find but it MBytes may not be a complete list. In addition, you may ask the Special Note: 1 two-side physical page is 2 images. vendor that is supplying your document management system as they may have a list of conversion companies Golden Gate Chapter News that they work with or recommend. The Chapter is always looking for help and ideas for ATI programs and educational events. If you have a good Milpitas, CA document management or records management case www.ati-imaging.com study and would like to share it, give us a call. BMI Imaging Services Committees Sunnyvale, CA www.bmiimaging.com The AIIM Golden Gate Chapter is looking for a Program Manager to help us develop and organize new programs, DataBank IMX events, and presentations. If interested, please contact Hayward, CA Bud Porter-Roth at budpr@erms.com. www.databankimx.com Want to set the direction on where the ECM and DM Fort Docs industry will go? Then join one of the many committees Santa Rosa, CA that is hosted run by AIIM. www.ftdocs.com For more information, go to: Lason, Inc. http://www.aiim.org/standards.asp San Francisco www.lason.com Peelle Technologies Campbell, CA www.peelletech.com January 2006 - 4
  • 5. AIIM Golden Gate Chapter Headlines ---------------------------------------------------------- Calendar If there is a topic you would like to see addressed in a January 25th, 2006 future newsletter, please contact one of the board AIIM Golden Gate Chapter members: Document Conversion Technologies President Bud Porter-Roth The AIIM Golden Gate Chapter is hosting a double 415-381-6217 feature on January 25, 2006. The topic is document budpr@erms.com conversion strategies and technologies. This includes both paper documents and electronic documents. We Vice President will have two speakers: The first speaker will talk about Chris Cowger document conversion strategies - how to organize your 510-494-7315 conversion effort, what to convert, and how move cowger@sciosinc.com forward with the conversion effort. The second speaker Treasurer will talk about conversion formats for documents Tom Hughes including PDF-A, XML, TIFF, and other choices you 925-376-7365 may have. TomEHughes@aol.com Lunch will be provided. Secretary There is a Registration Form included with this Laurel McAdams newsletter. Please complete for each person who will 510-477-3490 attend so that we have accurate lunch and attendance lmcadams@imagemax.com counts. Membership Chair The meeting will be held in San Francisco at 425 Market Paul Brighton Street, Room 20240 on the 20th floor from 11:30 AM to 707-745-8658 1:30 PM. This is an IBM facility and you will have to pbright654@earthlink.net check-in with security and will need a photo ID card. Programs Chair Several vendors that specialize in document conversions Open (Please inquire about this position) will be present with information and literature. AIIM/ARMA CHAPTER LIASON SPECIAL: Paying Members may bring one guest Chris Cowger FREE 510-494-7315 cowger@sciosinc.com You may also navigate to our chapter web page: http://www.aiim.org/chapters/goldengate.asp?ID=2 6297 © 2006 AIIM Golden Gate Chapter All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems without the written permission. January 2006 - 5