Microfilm Conversion

Are you ready to digitize your microfilm or microfiche?

OSC represents the DigitalReel and DigitalFiche products from BMI Imaging. The process is simple. We take your film, convert it to the digitized version, and provide you with the software you need to retrieve, read, print, save, or e-mail your files. You get the film back, too!

DigitalReel gives you a PC based interface that looks similar to your microfilm on a traditional scanner or reader/printer, but allows for much faster access, access by more than one person at a time, and no more need for microfilm readers, printers and their maintenance or deterioration of the microfilm!

You can download the latest version of the DigitalReel and DigitalFiche brochure.

• Eliminates the need for expensive microfilm readers, printers and their maintenance.
• Reduces congestion in the office for the public retrieving documents on film.
• Reduces access time in searches by quickly getting to the desired image.
• Purpose-built for ease of use in a public environment.
• Works on standard PC platforms.

Community patrons researching  genealogy or articles and photos of The Post-Searchlight and its predecessor papers can now do so by computer at Bainbridge College's library.

The new digital image system, the first of its kind in Georgia, replaces the former microfilm readers and printers. The main campus library's new technology became operational Oct. 25 after the database was installed by Stacy White, BC network administrator.  During the more than four-hour process to load more than 500 gigabytes of information, White was assisted by Tammy Clark, system analyst with the BC Office of Information and Instructional Technology, and by Bill Kimbel of Tallahassee, Fla., representative of Office Systems Consultants.  Kimbel trained library staff members Chandra Anderson-Casteel and Michelle Barsom on the use of the new system. They will train the rest of the library staff and assist library patrons using it.  The product, called Digital Reel, was produced by BMI Imaging in California, a leader in secure document and film management solutions for more than 50 years, Kimbel said, noting he has worked with BC Library Director Susan Ralph since February to find a suitable solution after the college's microfilm reader/printers quit working.

"When that happened, the library elected not to purchase a new machine for the antiquated format," Ralph said, noting that meant there was no way to view past Post-Searchlight articles.  READING NEWSPAPER ARCHIVES, such as this 1903 issue of The Searchlight, is faster and easier on the computer at the Bainbridge College Library. Community patrons can research using BC’s new digital image system, the first of its kind in Georgia.

She added that BC President Dr. Tom Wilkerson was instrumental in assisting the library with the funding to send the microfilm to California to be digitized.  "It is a new process that Office Systems Consultants of Tallahassee presented to us, and was much less expensive than other digitization projects we checked into," Ralph said. "I am so excited that the digital Post-Searchlight is available for our patrons," she enthusiastically said.  She and Kimbel worked with Dr. Toby Graham of the Digital Library of Georgia, which is at the University of Georgia. Graham was able to secure better film images for the project than the scratched microfilm BC had been using.  Kimbel noted that Graham is working with the Georgia Newspaper Project to evaluate this system for archives of more than 290 Georgia newspapers, a project Kimbel said would be "unmatched in the U.S."  The BC project covers archived papers from 1869 and involved converting more than 111 rolls of microfilm into the digital format.

The new resource reduces search time by quickly getting to the desired image. It provides options to convert the files into images, to make copies on a printer and to export into a pdf format. The BC Library's new electronic archives involve point-and-click operations with the computer cursor at the work station that houses the files. A researcher may choose to see an image by selecting the name of the publication, for example The Post-Searchlight or the Southern Georgian, and view a particular issue by year and month and see individual images of pages. In addition to simpler operations and easier viewing, the digital system provides the advantages of reduced annual repair, maintenance and replacement costs, and reduced staff time that was required to work with the old technology.

©The Post-Searchlight 2007