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Building RIPM’s Digital Archive


A professional scanning laboratory for print and microform has been set up at the RIPM International Center. All scanning is done to preservation standards. As of January 2022, over 3.6 million pages have been scanned.

RIPM possesses two print capture systems consisting of (i) an i2S CopiBook-Open A2 System with an Eagle 71mp camera, and (ii) Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III and Canon 5D Mark II digital SLR cameras, each with a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L zoom lens—which capture images at a true 400 dpi color or grayscale, along with a specially-designed and RIPM-built 120° book cradle with an operator-controlled motorized glass platen. These systems permit RIPM to photograph original materials with a mind to conservation by strictly limiting the stress placed on the volume by the scanning process.

Microfilms are scanned on a Wicks and Wilson RS 200 Rollfilm scanner. Each film is scanned according to the same preservation standards and at a speed which is comfortable for the operator to monitor any shifts in film or scan quality.

Images are stored a 120tb RAID array which is accessed via gigabit ethernet. Data is backed up into a cloud storage environment using a dedicated storage and backup server. Copies of the RIPM images and associated data are kept in geographically-distant locations.

Ten workstations are used for image processing. RIPM employs i2S's LIMB Server software for image batch processing. Linking of database records and full text is accomplished with a customized version of Image Access's Opus Software. The resulting XML-structured data is audited before publication. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is accomplished with both ABBYY and Tessaract software. Citation metadata for RIPM Jazz Periodicals is created and edited using custom capture software developed in conjunction with RIPM's technology parter, NES. Images, OCR, and associated metadata are housed on RIPM’s web servers at Towson University, part of the University of Maryland System. For databases available on EBSCOHost, versions of this data is also delivered to EBSCO Information Services.