LaSalle County Illinois Recorder Selects Digital ReeL for Microfilm Conversion Project

BMI Imaging will digitally convert County records archived on 800 rolls of microfilm; users will save time by avoiding the need to use microfilm reader printers and instead retrieve digital County records from PC workstations

Sunnyvale, California – February 25, 2011 – BMI Imaging Systems, a leading provider of microfilm conversion and document management solutions, announced that the LaSalle County Recorder’s Office, located in Illinois, has selected Digital ReeL as its microfilm conversion solution.

LaSalle County, Illinois recently shipped its microfilm rolls to BMI’s Northern California microfilm conversion facility, located south of San Francisco in Sunnyvale. The Digital ReeL microfilm conversion service will create a digital replica of LaSalle County’s microfilm rolls – each microfilm roll will be digitally converted into a virtual microfilm roll.

LaSalle County, Illinois currently relies on three microfilm reader printers to access County records. Users leverage index books to find the right microfilm roll(s) and then use one of three microfilm reader printers to access records.

Once the microfilm conversion process is complete, LaSalle County, Illinois will enhance the efficiency of the record retrieval process by providing users several computer workstations with the Digital ReeL application. The Digital ReeL interface will emulate microfilm retrieval, enabling users to type the book and page number of the document. Furthermore, users will be able to scroll back and forth through the virtual microfilm rolls as they conduct their public record search.

Tom Lyons, LaSalle County Recorder, states “we are looking forward to the adjustable grayscale feature of Digital ReeL. Like most microfilm archives, we occasionally find a difficult-to-read image. Digital ReeL’s adjustable grayscale feature will enable our users to optimize the quality of that image so that it can be read, essentially bringing that document back to life and in some cases making it better than the original.”

About BMI Imaging’s Digital ReeL

Digital ReeL is both a service and a software application. BMI Imaging will convert your microfilm to virtual, digital microfilm rolls at one of our secure facilities (optional, on-site option available). The Digital ReeL microfilm conversion service creates a digital replica of your original microfilm (or microfiche) – the entire microfilm roll is digitally converted. The Digital ReeL microfilm conversion solution includes a software application that emulates microfilm retrieval from a reader printer. Users retrieve virtual microfilm rolls from a PC workstation, avoiding the hassles that come with physical microfilm and legacy reader printers. Digital ReeL provides a unique grayscale adjustability that enables users to manually adjust the brightness and contrast settings of an image to optimize it prior to printing, emailing or saving as a PDF file. The Digital ReeL application is available as software installed at the organization’s site or can be accessed from a workstation with a web browser. In addition, BMI offers Digital ReeL as a hosted service – users store their digitally converted images with BMI, accessing their images from the Digital ReeL Web interface.

About BMI Imaging

Since 1958, BMI Imaging Systems has been a leader in microfilm conversion, microfiche scanning and document management solutions. BMI offers industry-leading scanning products from Canon 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.