If you’re a book enthusiast, news that libraries are going digital may leave you feeling weary. If you’re a library administrator, the concerns of staunch traditionalists may have you shying away from new technology. Fear not, going digital won’t turn your library into a cold, sterile environment from sci-fi future. Instead, it could help to highlight and improve many of the services patrons use on a regular basis.

Access information when, where and how you need it with document scanning

Why should we consider scanning our files?
There are several reasons businesses consider scanning their files; including:

• Space; paper filing systems take up a considerable amount of office space, space that could be better used by productive employees.

• Disaster Recovery Planning; no one likes to think about the worst case scenarios, but those who do are the ones who end up on top. Imagine a fire or flood happened in your office and you lost all your paper files tomorrow. What would that mean for your business? Scanned documents can easily be backed up and recovered from multiple locations with speed and ease.

• Productivity; employees spend about 40% of their time looking for information they need to make decisions. Searching through paper files is, to say the least, time consuming and unproductive. With document scanning your staff can find the information they need in a matter of seconds.

Electronic medical records allow physicians to access patient information. Just as with any other type of office, space is a precious commodity in medical practices. Yet many offices are arranged inefficiently, devoting more space to celling-to-floor shelves stuffed with manila folders than to patient seating. With an increasing number of general practitioners and family doctors reaching patient capacity, space and time saving measures have never been more important.

Are you questioning whether or not you can justify the transition from a paper based filing system to electronic document management solution? The real question should be “can you afford not to?” There are a lot of very expensive and unproductive soft costs associated with a paper filing system; so we ask you, is this really the best use of your staff’s time?

Employee Time Searching for Documents
A recent survey shows that employees spend 25% of their time just looking for information they need to do their job. On top of that, every week 42% of people use the wrong information to make decisions, requiring rework (read = more time, more money). An electronic filing system puts documents at the fingertips of every employee and manages version control, ensuring your staff are always working from the most current information.

When people think of document scanning, we often visualize a standard 8.5 x 11in sheet of paper. However, many businesses may have unique file management needs that fall outside of these dimensions. Digital images can be created for almost anything, making document scanning a flexible file management solution.

One of the most common questions we face on a day to day basis is "How do you convert my paper files into digital images?". It's not a surprising question, the process watching 200 boxes of documents leave your office for scanning and come back on a hard drive about the size of a deck of cards is a pretty amazing. The truth is the entire event is a systematic process with a heavy focus on security and quality.

If you're like most organizations, your collection of paper files probably consists of filing cabinets, document shelving, record storage boxes and of course those loose documents piling up on everyone's desk.

If your office moves at top speed, you need equipment that can keep up with your pace. We all know how frustrating it can be to have to stop and wait for office machines to finish their task—especially when we have a lot of work to do.

Fortunately, there are machines that are specifically designed to function well in high-speed environments. These high speed document scanners can scan documents at impressive speeds. They are made for meeting the demands of high-volume offices, and have the durability it takes to withstand this level of production.