NDK Project - Digitization 

The project aims to build two digitizing centers in the NL Prague and ML in Brno. The project should enable the digitization of bohemical documents from the 19th and 20 Century (a total of about 300 millions pages) in about 25 years. During the lifetime of the project (2010-14) will be digitized 26 millions pages. The project will use latest technology of robotic scanning (some of the scanners from  4DigitalBooks, Treventus, Kirtas, Qidenus). The scanners and adjoining technology will be selected in coming tenders. 

We expect the use of JPEG2000 format for both archival and user copy, as well as XML Alto. 

Robotic Scanners 

Given the large number of documents to be digitized, latest scanning technology for robotic scanning will be used. Where nature and physical state of the document does not allow robotic scanning and for large-formats we will use manual book scanners. 

We expect to achieve high degree of automation in the scanning process. 

For scanning documents, newspapers and larger formats we require robotic scanners that allow scanning documents up to the format A2. 

Since we will scan document from 19th and 20 century affected by degradation of the paper, we require robotic scanners with advanced mechanism for turning the pages, which do not use mechanical parts. 

Contemporary documents for scanning small-format robotic scanners require maximum output power. Gentle page turning system using mechanical components are acceptable in this case. 

All scanners should be capable of scanning in color, grayscale or black and white, with min.300 dpi. Scanners should be able to handle data using barcode readers. 

Examples of robotic scanners work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y16rNqnxj0U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RROgUub-cDQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSHaQFiaVKA

Presentation (PhDr. Jiří Polišenský, 2009) in czech only