Many professional practices, and such places as hospitals, have a legal requirement to retain paperwork for a statutory number of years, as well as ensuring that they are kept secure. The old method was to archive them in an area that was set aside for this purpose. The area needed to be dry and preferably dark, so that the paperwork did not deteriorate. Filing systems were employed, but over the years papers become confused, misplaced and destroyed by the multiple handling of them. Methods had to be devised to preserve the documents and also very valuable manuscripts.
Microfiche
This was the original method of preserving documents and they were placed on rolls of microfiche that were effectively photographs on a roll of film. These could be transferred to individual slides that could contain condensed information, which would be placed under a slide on a viewing screen. This method is still used in a number of institutions, including libraries, but as the handling of the film will eventually create damage the popularity of this system is disappearing.
Scanning
The advance that has taken place in respect of technology now means that documents can be scanned and kept for posterity. The document is placed onto the screen and a light is passed through it and an image created. This image is then transmitted by WiFI or a USB lead to a computer, where the image may be stored in the program of your choice, or in PDF thus creating a secure way of saving a document. A whole number of files can be saved, and then to reduce the space that these are taking on your computer they may be transferred to a Zip file that will condense the files, and thus reduce file space that is being used. The files will be saved on a hard drive, or possibly a USB key, and then they are available for future use.
Scanning is also useful outside of the archiving area in that sometimes people ask for copy documents to be submitted for say court cases and the transmission of these documents in scanned PDF file is now legally acceptable.
CrimsonDMS.co.uk
provides document scanning. We have over 55 years experience in this industry so consider ourselves to a specialist and provide quality to our work. Visit our site for book scanning.