Microfilm to Digital: Why You Should Convert Now

Whether you have microfilm with pictures, Genealogy records, newspaper clippings, old company files or magazine articles, that microfilm holds a piece of history for your company and possibly a piece of other people’s history, too. Whether you’re storing the microfilm in a company basement, a broom closet or an actual storage unit, these records are deteriorating and history is being lost. Converting from microfilm to digital can create a database for your company that can attract customers and add a line of credibility to your business, while also keeping a pieces of history alive. Here is why you need to make the conversion:

Lost Data

Microfilm is generally pretty sensitive to the elements, which means they degrade over time. The quality of these newspaper clips, articles or files will continue to decline, probably becoming unusable in the future. This means you may lose important information that you may need eventually. Additionally, a fire, tornado or other natural disaster could completely wipe out your microfilm database and destroy a piece of your business’ history. Digital data can be backed up into a cloud, preserving your documents permanently .

Reach Current Clientele

Some of those old documents could be very helpful for current clientele. Whether they are sleuthing past events or just have a general nostalgia for those simpler days, converting your old documents into digital files makes your archives much more accessible. These documents also show the history of a particular person, business or entity — yours or another person’s. Clients can utilize this information to learn more about your business, more about their roots or more about the past in general. Having these files easily on hand, in digital form, can attract potential patrons.

More Accessible for You

Have you ever had to spend an hour digging through old files to find the one thing you were looking for? That can be a huge waste of time. Microfilm is not as easily filed as it would be digitally. With digital files, a couple of well-informed clicks and you have the information you seek at your fingertips.

To begin digitizing your microfilm or if you have questions about the process, please contact us!

Secure your Newspaper’s Back Issues with Digital Archiving

Those in journalism are pack rats, and for good reason. You never know when you’ll need to dig up and old story from last year, or 50 years ago, and preserving those priceless archives is extremely important. Newspapers provide a look back through history.

But one of the most popular ways of newspaper archiving, especially in the past, was through the use of microfilm. It certainly did archive the issues, and took up much less room than paper copies, but maintaining temperature controlled, dust, and light controlled storage can be tricky, and one disaster can wipe out all those years of history.

Storage Made Simple, More Secure

The great thing about digital storage is that it takes little maintenance, and what little maintenance that is required can be handed off to someone else for just pennies per day, with no hassle on your end. It also allows you to maintain redundant back-ups, eliminating the threat that one disaster could take out the entirety of the archive.

Moreover, digitizing your archive can also make finding specific articles easier, even articles you didn’t even remember existed, through the use of search functions. This drastically diminishes the time you spend researching, allowing you to meet deadlines more easily with better researched pieces.

Better Access by Others

By digitizing your archives, you’re also eliminating the need for others to have to schedule time with you or those storing your microfilm in order to examine your archives, by providing the option to examine from the comfort of their home or office.

Being able to access a copy of a past issue online simplifies the process for everyone involved, and is a much easier process than you might think. To find out more about how we can help you move your archiving into the digital era, protecting your newspapers history for decades to come, contact us.

Breaking: News portal provides Hail Mary save for struggling print

We’d be preaching to the choir if we started this off with facts and figures about how the print newspaper industry has been struggling for years. Suffice it to say, people simply aren’t buying papers anymore, cutting you off from the ad circulation revenue that caused papers to take off a few decades ago.

We also know that some have developed options that work for keeping a paper afloat in these troubled times, but simply staying afloat isn’t enough. Wouldn’t it be nice to see revenue actually grow?

A 21st Century Newspaper

No matter how you cut it, people just don’t like papers anymore. They’re bulky, use paper (recycled or not), and spending money on something you’re just going to be throwing away or recycling at the end of the day or week just doesn’t seem financially viable.

This has caused more and more people to get their news over the computer or through a smartphone, and the industry response has been to simply put up paywalls. A 21st century solution that adapts the old school beauty of print with the digital era is possible, through news portal development.

Rather than just putting stories up like a blog, a news portal allows you to provide a digital copy of your actual newspaper to consumers, as well as two new ways to generate revenue that can either be used individually, or in combination.

New Lines or Revenue

By using our system, you can run a subscription service that allows only those with a subscription to access your newspaper, on any device they choose. Through digital transactions, which studies show are more reliable than traditional subscription services that require action on the part of the buyer to renew, you can generate a rather consistent revenue stream once again for those that want to read your paper.

Another option this provides is the ability to charge advertisers both for their ad showing in your paper edition and your digital publishing edition, with the digital edition providing even more in-depth analysis of the demographics their ads will reach.

For more information on how you can increase your revenue through a news ePortal, providing your readers with a more convenient way to read the traditional looking newspaper you work hard on every day, contact us.