Livermore City, California Partners with BMI Imaging for Large Format Paper Scanning and Microfilm Digitization Requirements
BMI Imaging provides large format document scanning and microfiche conversion services for Livermore City; digital images hosted at BMI data center and easily accessible online through Digital ReeL application
Sunnyvale, California – October 8, 2015 – The City of Livermore, California Community & Economic Development Department has been working with BMI Imaging for over 15 years. BMI scans and indexes large format paper documents such as building plans, structural calculations, grading plans and utility maps.
When the City’s microfiche reader/printers began to fail, Livermore took the opportunity to explore digital options because many of the Department’s constituents were requesting emailed copies of records rather than paper copies printed from the microfiche archive. After exploring options, the Department selected BMI’s Digital ReeL as its microfiche digitization solution. In addition, all large format paper documents are digitally available from the Digital ReeL viewer.
Lorraine Purcell states, “Our department has been scanning our large format records for years now with BMI. They have a track record of quality service and they‘re an important extension of our operations.” The City of Livermore also had microfiche sheets containing building permits, entitlement records, building plans and zoning ordinances. Outdated microfiche machines required to access these records had begun to fail.
Purcell continues, “Not many building departments we collaborate with have addressed their physical microfiche archives because of the perceived staff time required to manage a microfiche conversion project. Digital ReeL was unique because each microfiche sheet was digitized in its entirety, preserving the existing indexing we have in place. As a result, very little of our staff time was required to address indexing questions.”
All records converted with Digital ReeL are stored in non-proprietary formats (e.g. TIFF, JPEG, PDF), making the records easily exportable to other document management systems, if necessary. BMI Imaging was able to provide the City with custom indexing, labeling records by street names and other attributes. “Without going through multiple levels, screens and clicks, users can quickly locate records using street names and specific addresses,” states Purcell. “Full text search makes information searchable in ways not possible with the physical microfiche,” explains Purcell.
Livermore is storing all documents in BMI’s secure and high availability SSAE 16 Type 2 compliant data center facilities. IT Manager, Neal Snedecor, states, “We did not have to worry about the technical implementation or locate additional storage to store the large file sizes that are typical with microfiche conversion projects.
Snedecor concludes, “In the past, our on premise solution was tied to a particular computer host. With Digital ReeL, any staff member can log into the system from any computer. Everyone in the City, regardless of department, can now access our record repository.”
About BMI Imaging
Since 1958, BMI Imaging Systems has been a leader in document scanning, document management and microfilm digitization solutions. BMI offers industry-leading scanning products from Canon, the ScanPro from eImageData and the ApplicationXtender document management product line from EMC Corporation. In addition, BMI has developed the Digital ReeL microfilm and microfiche scanning solution, which is available nationwide. Today, BMI staff consists of 80 employees, many who have been with BMI for decades. BMI converts an average of 3 million images per month. BMI serves commercial and government agencies throughout the United States and has developed a customer list of more than 2,000 accounts. BMI is headquartered just outside San Francisco in Sunnyvale, California, with an additional production and sales facility in Sacramento, California.