Let me also point out that the lifetime of computer media is
still limited to a decade or so. In choosing between computer
media and microfilm/microfiche, you are choosing between
a medium that can be easily used for retrieval but has limited
lifetime and a medium that is difficult to use for retrieval but
has a much longer lifetime.
Roy Zimmermann wrote:
> Rick & Hans, I'll chip in a few comments based on prior job
> responsibilites. I oversaw an archival microfilming of lab notebooks
> at a chemical R&D lab that was being closed & the employees of which
> were being dispersed to multiple locations. Microfilm/microfiche is
> not a user friendly medium, but it is archival. If one of your
> objectives is to provide a permanent alternative to your original lab
> notebooks to protect against loss, damage, etc., microfilming, if
> conducted under suitable standards for permanence, will provide a
> long-term, storage stable medium. Computerized lab notebook storage &
> retrieveal will obviously enhance retrieval and be much more "user
> friendly." But the very ease of alteration has caused considerable
> delays in the legal admissibility of computerized lab notebook records.
> Having been out of the records management side of things for a long
> while, I'd suggest scouting a scanning service bureau that could scan
> the lab notebook pages, OCR the contents, thus facilitating indexing &
> retrieval, but also output the image scans onto archival standard
> microforms. The state of the art for OCR of handwriting is not great,
> but certainly would provide more retrieval points than a purely
> microform based system. If economically feasible, I'd suggest keying
> in the existing lab notebook indices, presuming you already require some
> type of table of contents/index listing from your scientists/engineers.
> You'd get better results that way than by OCR alone, where your error
> rates would be considerable.
>
> Roy Zimmermann
> Patent Information Specialist
> 612-514-3304
> roy.zimmermann@medtronic.com
> rzimmerma@aol.com
>
> >>> Hans Geelback Andersen <infoco@infoco.dk> 02/16/00 03:56AM >>>
> A remark from a non-member, sorry
>
> Dear Rick
>
> I cannot advise anyone to start a new project based microfiche That
> technology is a dying technology, it's difficult and very costly to buy
> new readers and the possibilities to 'work with' informations
> on a film are nearly non exsisting.
>
> Look in the the yellow pages and find a company that professionally can
> scan each side into a file - and make a database / index to the files
> with relevant - and searchable - comments.
> We have established such a system covering patent application, dev.
> notes and lab reports and it works beatifull and - first of all - You
> can put new ideas into this kind of system.
>
> Yours
>
> Hans Geelback Andersen
> infoco System A/S, Denmark
>
> Rick Samuelson wrote:
>
> > We currently have several hundred lab notebooks that need to be
> copied and put into secure storage. At present we are leaning toward
> microfiche. Are there better alternatives from an IP standpoint?
> >
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