To paraphrase Rebecca Fitzgerald, Scanning is for access, filming is for
preservation.
But there's nothing stopping you from doing both. Some companies, such as
Preservation Resources, with whom we recently have worked, offer both
services. The original is preserved by reformatting onto microfilm and the
microfilm is scanned onto cd for easier access. No, you don't necessarily
have the images OCR'd. The process is akin to those cds of census images
that are on the market. With the digital images, you could put your
collection on-line or enable multiple users to access the newspapers without
the necessity for a lot of space consuming microfilm reader-printers. With
the right viewing software, a patron could blow up and print the article
they want perhaps better than they could with the reader printer.
If the technology allows, I imagine it should not be too hard to "tag" the
images in some way to at least provide a way to access the newspaper by date
on the cd. Reliability of OCR will likely be an issue for a long time to
come, especially when dealing with scanned microfilm images and the
potential quality issues of older filming processes.
Scanning should not be a substitute for filming.

Scott D. Peters
Research Director/Archivist
Ocean County Historical Society
26 Hadley Ave., P.O. Box 2191
Toms River, NJ 08754-2191
(732) 341-1880
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"Telling the Stories of Ocean County"

Historically Speaking
ALHFAM -FPIPN vice-chair for trivia, errata and miscellany
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"The ordinary distinctions in society are often vague, and imply no just
pre-eminence: rank and titles are
adventitious things and instead of designating merit or virtue, are
frequently the baubles of imbecility, or
the sparkling decorations of meretricious pageantry"

William Griffith, on behalf, and by order of the New-Jersey Society for
promoting the gradual Abolition
of Slavery, Twelfth Month (December) 20th, 1803

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