Imaging Services Blog

As part of every aperture card conversion project, microMEDIA Imaging Systems delivers digital files of all scanned microfilm images from the aperture cards, as well as an accompanying database of metadata from the cards which is used to identify the images.

These two components are linked together so that clients can search through the database to find the appropriate image based on the dates, project names, and other data categories, and also quickly search and review the scanned digital images from the microfilms.

Searchable Database: As part of every aperture card conversion, we create a comma delimited spreadsheet containing the relevant data categories for each scanned microfilm image.

Due to the complexity of aperture card scanning, one of the other crucial elements of any aperture card conversion project is quality control. Whenever microMEDIA Imaging Systems works on a project to convert aperture cards to digital format, we make sure to devote a good amount of time to quality control – there are various idiosyncrasies in dealing with aperture cards that we need to watch for, and it’s always better to fix problems and make any corrections while the images are still easily accessible.

Here are some of the issues we watch for during the quality control process:

One of the most critical stages of the aperture card scanning process is identifying the metadata – the descriptive information that explains what the microfilm image contains – on each aperture card. This is why aperture card scanning involves much more than just “scanning;” some of the most complex work involves sorting through the old cards to find out exactly what we’re looking at, deciding what is important, and saving the information that needs to be stored for the future.

What is aperture card metadata?

When clients hire microMEDIA Imaging Systems for an aperture card conversion project, they often have a lot of questions. Especially if the company’s aperture cards have not been in regular use and may no longer be in the best condition.  A client might need some explanation of what will be involved with converting these unique documents to digital format.

In general, microMEDIA Imaging Systems uses the following multi-stage process to perform aperture card scanning, but the work involves more than just scanning. Scanning aperture cards and delivering a final digital file requires our team to wear many hats – depending on the age and complexity of the information stored on the cards, we need to serve as detectives, data analysts and research librarians.