Microfilm or electronic archiving?


Microfilm produced in accordance with the relevant British Standards has a minimum archival life of 30 years, and being a photographic product, has a guarantee of accessibility over this period. However, specialised equipment is required to access microfilm quickly and efficiently, and to produce full sized prints from the photographic images. Even then, documents can never be retrieved as fast as from an electronic archive, and access to the same record is limited to one user at a time unless multiple copies are made at the time of production, an additional expense to the user.

In many cases, an electronic archive can be run within an existing Windows platform, requiring no additional capital investment (other than a possible increase in drive space, which is now very inexpensive). When installed on a networked drive or server, the electronic archive becomes available at each client PC: when installed on a web server, there is no limit to the number and spread of users.

An archive constructed from industry-standard file formats can be maintained more-or-less indefinitely if the usual security back-up measures are put in place. In the majority of cases, changes in technology occur gradually, could be accommodated either by moving images into a new application, or by reformatting to meet the requirements of a new operating system.

Are microfilm and electronic archives legally admissible?


Microfilm has existed for more than fifty years, and there are many legal precedents for the use of information derived from microfilm or fiche being used in a court of law.

The rules of evidence as defined by the Civil Evidence Act have been updated quite recently to include the admission of document copies derived from an electronic archive, on the basis that they are the best available copies where the originals have been destroyed subsequent to scanning. The British Standard Guidelines for Legal Admissibility of data stored electronically set out the requirements and procedures for compliance with the Act, which Castle Document Management follows in their image production.

Both Customs & Excise and The Inland Revenue will normally be prepared to audit microfilm and electronic records, provided sufficient points of access to the data are provided.

In general, therefore, it is not necessary to retain the original records when they have been recorded in one or other of the systems described above.

Do we need to prepare the files in any special way before scanning or microfilming?


Castle Document Management will collect files ‘off the shelf’, list the contents, prepare the documentation for scanning or microfilming by removing staples and clips, and prepare the necessary headers if not already supplied by the client.

Most clients take the view that ‘weeding out’ duplicated and unwanted documentation is not cost effective, since the labour cost of the sorting process is usually greater than the additional scanning or filming cost. Castle Document Management will generally not undertake any weeding out, unless the rules are very clear cut.

Can archival quality be guaranteed?


Castle Document Management has a QA department which checks image quality and content, and key field data which has been manually indexed. Clients are encouraged to provide data for indexing in spread sheet or csv format, which both reduces the manual keying content and therefore the scope for keying error, and provides a reconciliation between the final image content and the client’s statement of documentation supplied for imaging.

What happens to scanned or microfilmed paperwork?


Castle Document Management retains processed paperwork for at least four weeks after delivery of the images to the client. Thereafter, it is disposed of in a secure manner, either by incineration or shredding and recycling. File covers may either be returned to the client or destroyed.

email: info@castledocument.co.uk    tel: 01962 882281

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