The Digital Library Systems Group at Image Access, Inc.

Digital Library Systems Group is a division of Image Access that provides digitization products to the library community with a special focus on university libraries.  With 14 years of digitization experience, substantial assets in image treatment, content capture and workflow, and its Bookeye and WideTEK scanners made specifically to digitize books, periodicals, newspapers and even maps and drawings, Image Access is in a unique position to provide complete solutions that precisely meet the very special digitization needs of libraries.  

So, in 2002, Image Access committed to develop three different, complete solutions to precisely meet the special needs of interlibrary loan, walk-up scanning, and preservation/archival by developing software based on its own extensive ‘libraries’ of source code. 

Image Access founded the DLSG with confidence that it could raise the bar for library digitization systems substantially.  For example, in 1997, we saw that text recognition systems failed miserably when attempting to read the poor quality characters produced by dot matrix printers and poorly focused computer output to microfilm/fiche, so we developed our own optical character recognition (OCR) engine and high volume production workflow system that performs accurately while even the latest general purpose OCR products fail.  This system was used in 2001 and 2002 to capture 30 million financial records and return billions of dollars of expropriated FGTS funds to the people of Brazil, then in 2003 to return $200 million to overtaxed Arizona taxpayers.

However, despite these and many other world-class technological achievements Image Access and the DLSG are pragmatic in our pursuit of perfect solutions.  When it makes sense or there’s a compelling need, we build our own technology from the ground up, but when the best technology is already available from other technology providers, Image Access licenses or buys the technology.  For example, while we have our own OCR engine, we have integrated the top three commercial/consumer OCR engines into our software products.

In 1997, we built a barcode reading engine that substantially outperformed all other engines.  Equipped with a large sample of difficult to read barcodes that the engines available at the time achieved 50-80% read rates, Image Access developed an engine in just a few months that read 96%, one-fifth the error rate of the next best engine.  This engine is general purpose and is used to meet a very wide variety of needs. 

In 1999, Image Access built a scanning, image treatment and content capture workflow system with an unlimited number of possible stages, scalable from a single user to thousands of users and capable of distributing work around the world over the Internet.  The easily customizable export (output) capability allows the system to be integrated with myriad viewing and content management systems, including Fedora, DSpace, CONTENTdm and others.

It was these technologies that led Stanford University to seek our help with various digitization projects, including a project for the World Trade Organization.  Their archives were being exposed to excess moisture during a wet season each year.  However, due to the nature of their operations, the archives would only be accessible for digitization for six weeks each summer.  The current system was far slower than believed possible.  We developed a special system that doubled performance the first summer that it was used. 

By 2002, our European specialty scanner manufacturing sister company, Image Access Computer, GMBH had released its Bookeye 2 line of large format color book scanners with a revolutionary Scan2Net interface.  With these new scanners, our extensive experience and assets in digitization and our experiences with Stanford University, including a new contract to design, develop and deploy a digitization workflow system for their new 4DigitalBooks automatic page turning scanner and a Bookeye for rescans, Image Access began to invest substantial engineering resources in the development of complete solutions for libraries.  In 2003, a formal group within Image Access was founded and in 2004, that group got a name, the Digital Library Systems Group.

Since then, we’ve learned a great deal about the special digitization needs of universities.  We knew the university community was small compared with even small segments of the commercial world, and that it moves very cautiously in new directions and once a decision is made, as much as a year can pass before action is taken. 

Today Image Access and its partners have sold Bookeyes, WideTEKs and software to over 400 universities.  We have over 50 resellers worldwide and customers on six continents. 

In summary:

“It’s been a long road and although much quieter than the commercial world, we are very excited about the synergy that has developed between our Digital Library Systems Group and the library community.  Our passion for digitization technology is now encompassing the special needs of libraries.  We will always be committed to perfecting solutions that precisely meet our library customers’ needs and putting the customer first.  If while working with any member of the DLSG team, a customer ever encounters less than sincere appreciation and tenacious pursuit of their satisfaction, please contact me and I will make things right.  Also, as many of our customers know, we actively gather ideas for improvement.  If a customer feels that a change in one of our products might make it better able meet their needs, I would greatly appreciate an email describing the change and the needs it would meet.”   Ted Webb, CEO of Image Access & Digital Library Systems Group.

Digital Library Systems Group
543 NW 77th Street
Boca Raton, FL 33487
Tel: 561-995-8334 or 800-378-5432
Fax: 561-431-2766
Email: DLSG@imageaccess.com