Since beginning my digitization project I have scanned, organized, and stored a decent amount of material. However, I still have a great deal of material to scan. In this post I will share my experience so far.
Before starting to scan material I set up a scanning area to ensure optimal scan quality. For my initial set-up I used an old fluorescent desk lamp for lighting and a dark blue tablecloth as a background. The tablecloth was for contrast and to make it easier to determine the edges of materials to be scanned. At first I had difficulty getting the fluorescent desk lamp to work, but after I got it to work it gave off a lot of light and I was able to produce great scans. About an hour or two after I started scanning the lamp went out. I fiddled with the lamp for a bit, but I was unsuccessful at getting it to work again. This led me to seek out alternative light sources. As I did not have any more fluorescent lights, I switched to a gold five-bulb incandescent lamp instead. After using the incandescent lamp for a couple scans I checked the images and they appeared to be similar in quality to the ones produced with the fluorescent lamp. As a result, I decided to continue using the incandescent lamp for the rest of the project. While scanning I noticed it took a while for some scans to upload to the app on my Macbook Air from my IPod Touch. This delay in uploading increases the time it takes to digitize one article, but this isn’t really that much of an issue in the big picture as one can continue to scan other documents while recently scanned documents upload. While checking and organizing scans on my Macbook Air I noticed some scans were slightly blurred (luckily these were few and far between). As these blurred scans were often the readings (i.e. scanned assigned readings) I was taking pictures of I decided not to take on the onerous task of going back and rescanning all failures. The primary documents I wanted to scan were my notes and the documents I personally wrote. This being said I did go back and rescan some pages that warranted the extra effort (i.e. notes and/or readings I wanted to be sure I had). Those that warranted the extra effort were determined to be as such based on personal preference and how I felt at the time, but notes took a high precedence and I do not believe I failed to go back and rescan any notes when I noticed there was blurring. Readings are a different story as the option is available to locate physical or digital copies due to the great efforts of others in our society. So there have been a couple bumps, but overall my scanning experience has been smooth and fruitful. I plan to write another blog post when I’m finished scanning or if anything changes, but as I have a lot to scan this may take a while. This being said if you have any questions about my digitization project feel free to post them below and I will do my best to respond to them as soon as possible. Cheers!
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In order to streamline the scanning process I set out to create an organization plan. This plan will encompass a hierarchical filing system and data storage strategy.
Hierarchical Filing System First, I brainstormed categories by which to organize materials hierarchically. Some of these categories were:
Next, I browsed through all the materials I wanted to scan. After browsing, I decided to organize materials by course (or workshop) as every material I wanted to scan was associated with a course and many materials were already organized in this manner. I considered organizing materials by education level followed by semester/term. This is the file system I employed while attending university. In the end I decided against this system as organizing materials by semester/term made sense when the folders most valuable (i.e. likely to be needed or used) were those in the current or most recent semester, but this value diminished once courses were finished. While considering other filing hierarchies I determined the most important thing is being able to locate materials from a specific course. Once determined, I considered the following hierarchy: Education level, subject area, course, type of material (e.g. notes, note booklet, tests, essays, handouts, etc.), then time, date, or number for sequential ordering to mirror when materials were actually created or acquired. I decided against this system for three main reasons.
After learning from the faults of the previous filing system I played around with potential hierarchies a bit more. In the end the hierarchy filing system I decided upon involved organizing materials by education facility or workshop followed by course (if applicable) in the format seen in the following example: PHIL 1200 – Introduction to Philosophy (i.e. Course Code – Course Name). Writing out the course in this manner would make it easy to determine the subject area with a simple glance. I decided on education facility instead of education level, because I completed a university level course in high school and it made more intuitive sense to organize by facility. While organizing the materials for scanning I decided against setting up rigid categories beneath the course level, because every course did not consist of the same types of materials and I would have to consult every page to be scanned in order to create relevant categories. As a result I decided to leave the creation of additional hierarchies for the scanning process where I would be in an optimal position to create relevant categories. Data Storage Strategy In order to ensure the accessibility of materials and ensure materials are not erased or lost I plan on saving copies of every file on two hard drives. I recently acquired a new terabyte hard drive and I also own a 320 GB hard drive. As two hard drives are unlikely to fail at the same time this should ensure copies are not lost and a new copy can be created relatively easily should one drive fail. Throughout the scanning process I plan on regularly backing up scans. In addition, I may save an additional copy of materials to a USB flash drive for ease of use and added peace of mind. To complete my digitization project I require the use of technology to scan materials and transfer scans. In this post, I will describe the app and equipment selection process I took to determine which technology to employ in the completion of my project.
I began the selection process with the desire to minimize costs and utilize equipment already in my possession. Equipment In My Possession
In light of the desire stated above, I determined there were two main courses of action available:
Since I already possessed knowledge of my camera, I decided to research iOS apps in order to obtain sufficient information to be able to make an informed decision on which would be the best course of action. In order to ease the research and selection process I came up with the following four requirements and desires:
Next I performed some basic searches for document scanning apps in the iTunes store. While doing so it quickly became apparent that there existed many apps that could meet my needs. This led to my determination not to use my camera, as doing so would needlessly increase my workload. It is not possible to email or upload scans directly from my camera (files must be transferred via SD card). There is no simple method for creating specific folders of images on my camera. Couple the previous deficiencies together and I have a recipe for time consumption. Every batch of scans I created would have to be transferred before starting another in order to ensure scans within a batch maintained a useful order. With my camera dropped out of the running I focused on researching apps that could meet my needs. A Google search brought up a recent review article by Allyson Kazmucha titled ‘Best document scanner apps for iPhone: Scanner Pro, TinyScan, PaperBox, and more!’ In this article, Kazmucha reviews five of the top document scanning apps available in the iTunes app store. These apps with a short bullet list of benefits summed up from Kazmucha’s article can be found below. Scanner Pro
InstaPDF
TinyScan Pro
SharpScan Pro + OCR
PaperBox
After reading Kazmucha’s article, I performed further research on each app and determined all five met my four requirements. With five stellar apps to choose from I decided to discontinue my search for additional apps. Next, I needed to figure out a way to further reduce my selection. As I wished to minimize costs the next step was to eliminate those apps that cost money. This led me to eliminate Scanner Pro, TinyScan Pro, and SharpScan Pro + OCR. With only InstaPDF and PaperBox left, I downloaded and tested both apps to see which one would be best for my project. During testing I determined that InstaPDF was superior to PaperBox. InstaPDF has a minimalist user interface with virtually no features likely to be unused during my project. InstaPDF provides an intuitive method of organizing files (e.g. users can alter scan order with a side swipe and simply click ‘Add Page’ to add a new scan to a batch). Both InstaPDF and Paperbox produce scans of equivalent quality. InstaPDF provides a superior method of transferring files by automatically syncing with a free Mac app. In addition, I determined the OCR capability of PaperBox was not essential to the successful completion of my project. Even with this being the case I performed a quick Google search and was able to determine that if I wished to have this feature in the future it would not be terribly difficult to locate and utilize PDF-OCR conversion applications. As a result of a perfect fit with my project needs and an intuitive fit with my own desires, InstaPDF will be the app employed for my digitization project. Now that I have selected the technology, I am prepared to start the next stage of my project (i.e. the development of an organization strategy). -------------------- Works Cited Kazmucha, A. (2014, May 21). Best document scanner apps for iPhone: Scanner Pro, TinyScan, PaperBox, and more!. iMore. Retrieved from http://www.imore.com/best-document-scanner-apps-iphone-scanner-pro-tinyscan-paperbox-more In this post, I wish to introduce and discuss a personal project I intend to complete over the coming months. This project involves the digitization, organization, and presentation of academic works, notes, and materials I produced and collected during my last year at Steinbach Regional Secondary School, my Bachelor of Arts at the University of Manitoba, and my Masters of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta. Over the course of my educational path I have accrued thousands of papers. While it is unlikely I will need to consult every paper again, I wish to keep a record for future reference. My yearning to digitize the materials described above stems from my desire to minimize my physical footprint; an increasingly important desire in my life and a desire that has become increasingly difficult to practice as the amount of stuff I own decreases (i.e. I have already grasped the low-hanging fruit). Some other motivations for taking on the above project include a desire to practice developing a custom digitization plan, provide easy access to materials should I ever need them in the future, and blog about something of potential relevance to other information professionals.
For this project I intend to periodically blog about my progress and major steps. The major steps are as follows:
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