The Finnish National Archives is responsible for digitizing all archival collections in Finland. They are currently digitizing microfilms, maps, and the most used collections to make them more accessible and preserve the originals. Digitization is an effective way to preserve collections and free up resources for conservation. The Archives holds 210 km of documents from 1316-1975 and 2 million maps and drawings. Currently, they digitize about 30,000 documents per day using various scanning equipment. By cutting book bindings before scanning, they can digitize volumes more quickly while maintaining image quality standards. They plan to develop a new process to digitize more recent text-based collections using OCR to extract searchable text and metadata.

1. In-House Digitisation as a
Core Task. The Finnish
National Archives
19.1.2016
PhD István Kecskeméti, head of unit

2. National Archives in Helsinki:
All digitisation activities
Cutting of bindings for digitisation
Main conservation facilities
Provincial Archives in 7 cities:
Hämeenlinna, Joensuu,
Jyväskylä, Mikkeli, Oulu, Turku
Vaasa
Five provincial archives have one
conservator each

4. Collections
210 shelf kilometres of historic documents from 1316-1975
2 million maps and drawings

5. Present practices
1. Digitisation of microfilms (rolls) – savings in reading room
resources (ready by end of 2015)
2. Digitisation of maps – savings in transport of maps and in
originals - collection preservation
3. Digitisation of most used collections to be sent to the Central
Archives – ”Passive collections” - collection preservation
4. Cutting new bindings (1810-1970), scanning with document
scanner – speeding up digitisation volumes, mainly ”passive
collections” - collection preservation
DIGITISATION IS EFFECTIVE MEAN FOR PRESERVATION
OF ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS AND AS WELL A WAY TO GET
RESOURCES FOR PRESERVATION

6. • ZEUTSCHEL (A-0) maps and drawings
• ZEUTSCHEL (A-1) maps and drawings
• ZEUTSCHEL (A-2) bindings (2 pc)
• Book2Net Flash, A1
• QIDENUS, semiautomatic, A2, bindings
• NEXTSCAN ECLIPSE microfilmscanner
• KODAK i4200, i4600, i5200 (2), i5600 document
scanner A3
• EPSON 10000 A3 (flat bed scanner)
• CANON 5D MARK II (camera) glass plates
• Readingroom, self service scanner
Book2Net Kiosk, A2
Scanner device

7. • Master Tiff
• Three files (tiff ja 2 x jpeg)
• 24 bit ja 8 bit, no 1bit files
• File sizes large
Quality criteria
Original 62cm X 43cm
Tiff 300 ppi, AdobeRGB, 107 mb, unpacked
Jpeg, 100 ppi, sRGB, 0,36 mb,
packing quality 7 (1-12)
Jpeg, 300 ppi, sRGB, 3,4 mb,
packing quality 8 (1-12)
Original size Resolution
6x9cm 1600 ppi
9x12cm 1200 ppi
13x18cm 900 ppi
18x24cm 600 ppi
A3 (or larger) 300 ppi

8. Quality criteria
Transfer package

9. New digitisation process

12. Documents from 1827

13. Scanning speed, files per day
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
Cruse Zeutschel A2 Qidenus Kodak i4600 Kodak i5600
Total amount of documents digitised 40.000.000 2004-2015

14. Present and future processes
1. 210 shelf km historical documents already at the
Archives (from 1530-1975)
Traditional digitisation process, text  image files TIFF,
jpg
By cutting bindings more effective scanning
2. 130-150 shelf km modern A4 documents to be
transported to the Archives (from 1976-2016)
New digitisation process in development, text  text and
image files
Part / all of the text of documents optically read (OCR)
to metadata and / or searchable text.
 Master file e.g. PDF-A (multipage, full/partial text search)

15. JPEG (x2)
PDF/A
Digital
archives
Usage
Digital Archives
http://digi.narc.fi
Collection
(originals) Scanning
8 bit
24 bit
TIFF
Storage
(Storage room/LTO4)
Metadata
(technical)
Transfer server
(internal)
Present and future process
Metadata - indexes
Transferpackage
Transfer package
TIFF
2 X Jpeg
TIFF +
OCR-read PDF/A
Finna
User
interface
Metadata – archival database
Catalogising and sorting,
pretreatments
Cleaning, cutting, boxing
Barcodes

16. Development of amount of
digitised files
0
10000000
20000000
30000000
40000000
50000000
60000000
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Between 2004 – 2015 39.000.000 files,
estimation 50.000.000 files by end of 2016
Digitisation projects:
2009 1,55 M € 8 months
2010 2,07 M € 7 months
Funds for developing
the new digitisation
process 2014

17. Digitised collections
Swedish period -1809
Account books (include taxation, land and census records)
Church records
Russian period 1809-1917
Census records
Church records
Coart books
Government records
Independence period 1917-
Government records, state central officials records
Civil war and Second world war documents
Person registers
Land owning documents
Catalogue and indexing cards (to earlier records)

18. 0
5000 000
10000 000
15000 000
20000 000
25000 000
1 2 3 4
16th 17th and 18th 19th 20th century

19. Account book
1551
Handwritten
Language
Swedish
Digitised
from original
book without
cutting the
binding. Note
the slight
curving of the
double page
in the middle

20. Coart book
1645
Handwritten
Language
Swedish
Digitised from
microfilm
without cutting
the binding.
Note the
curving of the
double page in
the middle

21. Account book
1781
Handwritten
Language Swedish
Digitised from
original book
without cutting the
binding. Note the
curving of the
double page in the
middle

22. Census record
1809
Handwritten
Language
Swedish
Digitised from
original book
without cutting
the binding.
Note no curving
of the double
page in the
middle.

23. Coart book
1824
Handwritten
Language Swedish
Digitised from original paper
after cutting the binding

24. Coart book
1918
Handwritten
Language
Finnish
Digitised from
original paper
by cutting the
binding. Two
separate images
combined as
double page.

25. Census record
1912
Handwritten
Language
Finnish
Digitised from
microfilm
without cutting
the binding.
Note no curving
of the double
page in the
middle.

26. Cadastral map
1794
Handwritten
Language Swedish
Digitised from original
paper in full colours

27. Cadastral map, text
document
1954
Handwritten
Language Finnish
Digitised from original
paper in full colours

28. istvan.kecskemeti@arkisto.fi
http://digi.narc.fi/