Category Archives: Case Studies

Project background

Project background

On March 3, 2009, faulty work during the construction of a subway tunnel led to the catastrophic collapse of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne. In the process, the approximately 30 shelf kilometers of archival materials stored there were damaged, most of them suffering cracks to the point of fragmentation, buckling, compression, and damage caused by groundwater.

After the salvage phase was completed in 2011, during which about 95 percent of the buried archive material was recovered, the newly established Restoration and Digitization Center (RDZ) began sifting, restoring, and digitizing the holdings, a process that lasted until 2021.

During this phase, the search was on for systems that could scan the fragile holdings as gentle as possible. Due to the enormous amount of material to be handled and the workload for the staff, these also had to be as efficient as they were user-friendly.

The decision was made in favor of the first models in the book2net Flash and book2net Profi series, which have then been used since the end of 2011 at the latest. Thanks to the high depth of field of the book2net systems, not only files but also register volumes with thick pages can be scanned easily without readjustment.

Project background

In 2014, the Bodmer Lab team, led by Professor Jérôme David, began digitizing the holdings of the Bibliotheca Bodmeriana. The Bodmer Lab emerged as a research and digitization project from the partnership between the Faculty of Arts of the University of Geneva and the Martin Bodmer Foundation.

For this extensive project, a book scanner was sought that met the high requirements for gentle and efficient digitization of the precious holdings. The Bodmer Lab team decided on the book2net Cobra A2 V scanner with semirobotics:

“Scanning with the Cobra machine is comfortable and user-friendly and the safety of our precious books is assured because of the stable industrial components. The scanning machine is designed to avoid damage on our precious books and it is really important to us to conserve them as best as we can.

What we also appreciate is the possisbility to digitize books of various formats which is a good thing for us because the Fondation Martin Bodmer has a wide range of rare books of different sizes.

Working with this scanner also allows us to save time because its dual sensors photograph two pages simultaneously.”

Project background

Since 2016, Uzbekistan has been pursuing a comprehensive digitization strategy in the area of its administration and public services under President Mirziyoyev. This was significantly supported by LG Electronics, which carried out the tenders for major projects on behalf of the Uzbek government.

The development of the digital competencies of the National Library is an essential part of this process, in the course of which 60 new jobs were created. With regard to the necessary equipment, book2net met and even exceeded all requirements given in the corresponding tender and won the bit. In the summer of 2018, the first shipment of more than 30 book scanners arrived in Tashkent, where the devices were installed by our team. In 2019, new need for devices for the National Library branch offices around the country arose. Once again, book2net was able to convince, securing a shipment of 25 new book scanners to the country.

The National Library intends to digitize its entire stock of books, newspapers and photographs, making them accessible to the Uzbek public via their website. Thus, important cultural heritage from Uzbek history is preserved and made accessible to the local and rural communities all over the country.

Project background

In order to facilitate access to the files at the various locations in the long term, personal file inspection on site is gradually being supplemented by digital provision of the documents. Digitization on demand is carried out exclusively in the internal workshops of the Federal Archives. The digitized fonds can be accessed via the website of the Federal Archives.

In the full expansion stage, an internal digitization capacity of 20 million pages per year is planned. By the end of 2021, approximately 75 million pages have already been digitized.

To carry out this ambitious project, it was therefore necessary to increase the capacity of the digitization workshop and expand the pool of equipment.

Project background

At the Frankfurt site, the society holds extensive scientific and book collections from various disciplines that are to be successively digitized. To implement this digitization project, the SGN looked for a suitable solution by tendering and opted for a book2net A1 Reprographic studio solution. At the moment, the scanning system is installed in the Department of Paleontology and Historical Geology in Frankfurt am Main, helping to digitize extensive amounts of data from various research areas. This includes the scanning of scientific archives in the form of literature, reports or unpublished research data but also the scanning of various objects in their collections (e.g. herbarium specimens or thin sections of rock).

Project background

In order to simplify administrative processes, to facilitate the access to documents for the employees and thereby improving the services for the Uzbek population, the Ministry of Justice has decided to start the extensive project of digitizing 160 million bound documents. These documents contain personal data of the Uzbek population spanning three generations. One of the major challenges of the project was that these documents were kept in 248 different locations across the country. In addition, the binding of Asian government documents differs from the European one, which makes it difficult for conventional scanners to capture information in the critical book fold area. The age and fragility of some documents also posed additional challenges.

Project background

Since the new library was to be equipped according to the highest technological standards, the most modern digitization solutions were searched for by tendering. Through our partner Naseej, the leading provider of digital transformation solutions in the Middle East, we were able to take part in the tender and convince due to the high quality of our products.

Project background

The LMU library, including the central library and another 14 branch libraries, holds approximately 5 million media and is thus one of the largest university libraries in Germany. It is a modern center of information transfer for science, research and teaching.

To implement a digitization program that would make the extensive inventory accessible to students through self-service systems and also be sustainable, cost-effective and environmentally friendly, the LMU looked for a suitable solution by tendering.

Project background

As part of the conversion of the microfilming devices to digital technology, which was agreed between the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) and the Conference of Heads of the Federal and State Archives Administrations (KLA), four of the German state archives involved have already decided to purchase a total of 12 book2net high-performance archive scanners.