Book Scanning

For a few years now, our staff and volunteers have been using an Atiz BookDrive system to digitize books in our collection.  The BookDrive includes two cameras, special lights, a cradle for the book, and software for saving the images.  Digitizing helps to preserve fragile materials by lessening the need to page through them by hand, and it allows wider access to our documents as a result of the electronic copies.

A volume placed in the cradle of the BookDrive
The BookDrive scans can also be converted to images which are suitable for microfilm, thus providing a permanent copy of important records.  Senior Imaging Technician Angie Spray creates microfilm in our department using a Kodak Archive Writer machine, from the images that are scanned on the BookDrive.  Archivists estimate that microfilm, when properly created and stored, will last approximately 500 years.

An example of how we are able to view
 the photographed pages in the software 

Imaging Technician Corinne Johnson recently finished scanning 80 volumes of Probate Court Journals using BookDrive.  She is now scanning the Probate Complete Records.  In 2012, college student intern Matthew Jones scanned several hundred Licking County death certificates from the early 1900's.  In 2013, volunteer Bob Grove scanned the Jail Registers, which contain information about prisoners at the old Licking County Jail.

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