The Vatican Library is on a digitization drive to preserve and archive thousands of its valuable historical manuscripts.

1. Vatican Library Moving to Digital
Document Management System
The Vatican Apostolic Library, one of the world’s most important research
libraries, has begun a pilot project to digitize thousands of its valuable historical
manuscripts. All of its 82,000 manuscripts dating from the origin of the Church to
the present are expected to be accessible online within the next four years.
The library is carrying out its document scanning and digital archiving project with
the help of a Japanese technology group, NTT Data Corporation. The company
provides outsourcing services to clients in over 40 countries and is experienced
in digitizing rare manuscripts.
BBC reports that the initial stage of the project will cover about 3,000 handwritten
documents over the next four years and that the Vatican Library’s long­term aim
is to digitize 40 million pages of documents. By outsourcing its digitization project
to this established company, the Vatican Library can expect to get this ambitious
and prestigious project completed efficiently within the stipulated time frame.
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2. Benefits of the Digitization Drive
The Vatican manuscript collections in Latin, Greek and Oriental are valuable
treasures of mankind should be preserved at any cost. An efficient digital
document management system would help in the following ways
• Preserve and archive the precious historical documents
• Provide academics and scholars with quicker and easier access to the
records
• Create back up of the valuable material
• Reduce handling of fragile manuscripts
• Save storage space
Technology for Digitizing the Vatican Manuscripts
Technicians from NTT will work together with Vatican librarians to digitize the
entire collection of 82,000 manuscripts which comprises more than 41 million
pages. The first stage of the project will cover the digitization of around 3,000
handwritten documents. NTT scanners will be used for document scanning and
special software will be used to archive and manage the collection. NTT’s broad
wavelength­range voltage­controlled laser beam scanners, ideal for handling
fragile and brittle manuscripts, have no moving parts and are much faster and
smaller than conventional scanners.
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3. In addition to document scanning services, the Vatican Library would need an
efficient document management system covering indexing, document
preparation, access control, keyword search, and proper archiving of information.
Document Conversion for Businesses
Organizations, both private businesses and government, are converting their
paper documents into digital format to improve efficiency, flexibility, and
workflow. Most hire the services of a professional document conversion company
to help with the project. Digital imaging services are available for everything from
photographs, slides, negatives, microfilm and microfiche to books, journals,
newspapers, maps, posters, catalog cards, reports and manuscripts. OCR / full­
text conversion services are also provided.
Outsourcing document management to a reliable firm can ensure lower operating
costs, smoother operations, electronic review, document security, and easy
sharing information with indexing capabilities.
.
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