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Document Scanning

Broadcaster plans archive project – why you should do the same

Document scanning and storage can ensure all kinds of things are preserved for posterity.

BBC Sport has revealed that it is planning a huge project to document and archive its vast collection of broadcast footage, interviews and other valuable assets so they can be used for decades to come.

The department wants an integrated storage solution for an initiative that could cost up to £1 million.

A statement said: "The goal is to improve the quality of output by utilising content across all platform operations," adding that "a cost-effective, scalable model to meet the demands of a rights-based sports broadcaster where access to content is of a fast turnaround nature" is required.

The project will also see legacy content held on old-fashioned storage products such as tape digitised so it doesn’t become inaccessible in the future. This unfortunate fate has already happened to some old BBC content in the past, so the corporation is no doubt keen not to see its sports footage disappear for good.

Obviously, the BBC needs to retain hours and hours of footage because of the amount it generates each day. However, don’t assume that your organisation doesn’t require a similar scheme, even if it’s much smaller.

Archiving your old documents using document scanning and storage solutions can free up lots of office space and provide a valuable resource for your staff and perhaps even researchers many years from now.

For example, if you’re a charity and have lots of old photographs or research on healthcare or natural disasters, this may be crucial to social historians at some point in the future.

Look at the recent news about digitising First World War soldiers’ wills – they were once simply scraps of paper kept in the men’s pockets, but now they have been put online to form a poignant and important documentation of the conflict for a generation that has never lived through large-scale war.

All kinds of documents can be more important than you imagine – and they are gone for good should a fire or flood occur. To take a closer look at what you might like to archive and found out how it can be done cheaply and efficiently, give Dajon a call today.