The Vendor is required to provide comprehensive services for the digitization of approximately 2,176 rolls of 16mm microfilm.
- This initiative is part of a long-term institutional goal to modernize record storage, improve accessibility, and ensure long-term preservation of vital documents.
- The digitization process must produce high-resolution, text-searchable pdf files with clearly indexed metadata, securely stored and returned on portable media.
- Provide end-to-end digitization services, including but not limited to secure transportation, scanning, OCR processing, indexing, file organization, secure delivery, and optional destruction of original microfilm rolls.
- Must be performed in accordance with industry best practices for archival imaging and digital conversion of legacy media.
- These rolls contain a wide variety of historical student, enrollment, and institutional data, and each roll is estimated to contain approximately 2,000 grayscale images, totaling an estimated 4.35 million images across the collection.
- Microfilm scanning and image enhancement
• Each roll must be scanned at a minimum of 300 dpi in grayscale format.
• Rolls are estimated at 100 feet each and may include simplex image formats.
• Scanning must be conducted using equipment capable of handling delicate archival film with multifeed detection to avoid missed images.
• Each image should be processed for clarity, orientation correction, and brightness/contrast adjustments as needed.
• Suppliers should outline any image enhancement algorithms or manual QC processes that will be applied to improve legibility. - Optical character recognition (OCR) and pdf creation
• All scanned images are to be converted into fully searchable multipage pdf files using OCR technology. • OCR must be performed with attention to accuracy, and suppliers must indicate how accuracy is verified.
• If necessary, a pre-processing sample or testing phase should be conducted to verify OCR suitability, especially for older or degraded images. - Indexing and file organization
• Files must be indexed logically and clearly for user-friendly access.
• At a minimum, each roll shall be associated with a unique file name referencing the roll number.
• Due to file size limitations, each roll may be segmented into multiple pdf parts, with a consistent naming convention applied (e.g., roll001_part1.pdf, roll001_part2.pdf).
• Suppliers should describe any advanced indexing options available (e.g., indexing by record type, date, or student id) and the process for collaborating with agency to determine an optimal structure.
• Metadata embedded in the pdf should include roll number, image count, OCR status, and any applicable document-level tags.