Library, archive, and museum professionals are experts in preserving and sharing information. At Backstage, we bring that expertise to your project, treating your company’s historical data and social legacy with the care, skill, and intention it deserves.
Physical documents aren’t always easy to access, and they often vary in size, complexity, and fragility. From vintage advertisements and photo negatives to documents and 3D objects, we have the equipment and expertise to digitize it all.
All materials are checked into our secure storage as soon as they are received. Our equipment is calibrated according to industry guidelines and each image captured is reviewed by our quality assurance team. You’ll receive TIFFs, JPEGs, JPEG-2000s, and/or PDFs with embedded data, including Optical Character Recognition (OCR), transported via stable hard drive.
Higher fidelity than a scanner bed; more intentional than a high-speed scanner. Our production model with its focus on hand-placed digitization promises archival quality as our standard. We follow the guidelines that govern permanent records access in the cultural heritage industry.
Information is only as good as your ability to access it, and metadata is more than just “data about data.” Controlled vocabularies and accurate tagging make the difference between success and failure when it comes to accessing your digital records.
Metadata makes your digital and intellectual assets discoverable. Descriptive tagging can be applied to images, documents, and more according to the format you need: XML, Dublin Core, EAD, TEI, and more. We can use industry terminology or a list curated by your institution to ensure every file is retrievable.
It’s not uncommon for our team to put together a custom program in order to improve the speed and accuracy of our tagging projects. We utilize the best parts of hand encoding and automation, making sure your data is indexed intuitively and correctly.
What do you have in storage? Documents, photos, microfilm, blueprints; whether you have boxes left over from retention policies or items that you would like to have archived, we can assist with a processing plan.
Our expert project managers and archivists travel around the world to work with all types of material. Inventorying, reorganizing, arranging, and ensuring media is properly stored to prevent deterioration are the types of tasks we do everyday.
Collections that have grown over time benefit from initial review before any type of processing starts, be that digitization or organization. Start with a collection assessment and receive a report about the nature and current order of your documents and ephemera.
Modern microfilm can last as long as 500 years, and our company is regarded as one of the leading experts in film generation, duplication, and storage. We manage the process from start to finish at our purpose-built Pennsylvania facility.
Textual content converts excellently to microfilm, which remains the preferred medium for newspaper preservation and keeping meeting notes, ledgers, and registers on file. Reels can condense thousands of pages to just a roll or two, significantly reducing the storage space you need while ensuring the information contained therein is retained for centuries.
Where microfilm is the gold standard for longevity, digital files remain the champions of information access. Once reels are created, the process of digitizing them is simple. Speak with our team to learn more about the Reel Deal, which delivers the best of both worlds.
Projects are the most successful when professionals come together to share their expertise. We've got the equipment and processing standards to connect with your intimate knowledge of your collections.
While there are plenty of "best practices", not every practice is going to be best for your materials. We know that better than anyone. That's why the workflow we use with your project will be tailored to fit your objectives.
Clients experience improved access to collections through expert care, meticulous organization, and a lifelong quality guarantee. Because or our wide portfolio of services, Backstage is often credited as a one-stop solution.
There's something new every month. We write about materials processing, the latest trends in the library world, news, and we introduce you our amazing staff members through interviews.
What do our projects look like? These quick-read case studies give you the overview of projects we've completed in the past. Do you recognize YOUR collection in any of these success stories?
Watch a video clip or webinar recording. Topics cover a range of subjects, presented by Backstage staff, partners, and guest speakers.
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