Johns Hopkins To Digitize Collections with Kirtas Scanner

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 04/03/08
Just months after forming a new center to manage digital scholarship, Johns Hopkins University has chosen a system from Kirtas Technologies for digitization work in the school's Sheridan Libraries. The collections form the major research library resources for the university and include rare and unique volumes, many that are deteriorating.

The Baltimore-based university has chosen to use a Kirtas APT BookScan 2400, which provides what the vendor calls "gentle scanning of bound books." The system can capture images of 2,400 pages per hour, according to the company. The platform includes proprietary image processing software for performing optical character recognition to create searchable files in 170 languages.

Johns Hopkins will also be able to prepare its rare, out-of-copy collection for sale through Amazon.com. Kirtas was selected by the university because of the company’s commitment to digitization technology and engineering support, the vendor said in a statement.

“The university holds a place of historic relevance in terms of its commitment to research and scientific advancement, and we’re honored to play a role in helping to preserve that history,” said Kirtas CEO Lotfi Belkhir.

The campus has been involved in numerous digitization efforts already, including the capture of 130,000 sheets of music and cover art from the Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection and development of a virtual collection of Medieval manuscripts.

The Digital Research and Curation Center was created in October 2007 to manage, preserve and provide access to digital scholarship generated by faculty and researchers at the university. That Center grew out of the former Digital Knowledge Center, established at the school in 1997. "The new center is a key element of the Libraries’ digital program, which is looking beyond merely preserving immense digital data sets," said director Sayeed Choudhury at the time of the Center's opening. "Our librarians and technology specialists are working collaboratively with faculty across a broad range of disciplines to use the data in innovative ways that were not possible in the print world.”

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • student reading a book with a brain, a protective hand, a computer monitor showing education icons, gears, and leaves

    4 Steps to Responsible AI Implementation

    Researchers at the University of Kansas Center for Innovation, Design & Digital Learning (CIDDL) have published a new framework for the responsible implementation of artificial intelligence at all levels of education.

  • glowing digital brain interacts with an open book, with stacks of books beside it

    Federal Court Rules AI Training with Copyrighted Books Fair Use

    A federal judge ruled this week that artificial intelligence company Anthropic did not violate copyright law when it used copyrighted books to train its Claude chatbot without author consent, but ordered the company to face trial on allegations it used pirated versions of the books.

  • server racks, a human head with a microchip, data pipes, cloud storage, and analytical symbols

    OpenAI, Oracle Expand AI Infrastructure Partnership

    OpenAI and Oracle have announced they will develop an additional 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity, expanding their artificial intelligence infrastructure partnership as part of the Stargate Project, a joint venture among OpenAI, Oracle, and Japan's SoftBank Group that aims to deploy 10 gigawatts of computing capacity over four years.

  • laptop displaying a phishing email icon inside a browser window on the screen

    Phishing Campaign Targets ED Grant Portal

    Threat researchers at cybersecurity company BforeAI have identified a phishing campaign spoofing the U.S. Department of Education's G5 grant management portal.