Scanning is the initial step for moving from a physical object to computer accessible data.
When you start planning a digitization project, it is useful to consult the resources that have been published by Library of Congress and others federal agencies. These will help you plan in ways that give your digital files the best chance to be useful in a wide range of contexts.
We have the VueScan software installed on the Dell Desktop for creating and processing the scans.
To use the scanner, first select that VueScan software from the Desktop.
You may get a warning that there is no detected scanner. If that happens, turn the scanner off and on again.
Once you have VueScan and the scanner talking to one another, you can configure the scans according to the type of document and your needs for them.
If you are scanning primarily for computational analysis and a digital record, you should use the PDF format.
To start configuring your scans, go to the Input tab and select the “Professional” options so that you have the most control of the scanning settings.
If you are working with documents, set the Scan Resolution to 300 dpi.
Finally, set the default folder for saving files and set the desired file name.
Next, go to the Color tab. Most of the defaults are fine, but change the Output color space to Adobe RGB.
Finally, set your output options. Here you can set the default file name.
For output, select “PDF file” as well as “PDF OCR Text” to generated a text-recognized PDF file.
You can also add embedded metadata in the “Description”, “Copyright”, “Date” and “Caption” fields.
Once your settings are correct, click “Preview” to make sure the document is recognized correctly. You may need to adjust the crop so that only the page is in view.
Once you are ready, select “Scan+” to generate the PDF files. Do this for each subsequent page -> the scanned pages will appear in the right sidebar as they are loaded in. You may need to rotate the pages by right-clicking on the image and choosing your rotation direction.
Once the whole document is scanned. click “Save.” This will launch the Explorer window where you can adjust the file name and save the files.
Once you have finished scanning, upload your folder to your Box account – the files on the Dell machine will be deleted periodically.