The ODISS Project, Digital Imaging Research for Archival Institutions

Abstract

In 1985, the National Archives and Records Administration of the United States undertook the Optical Digital Image Storage System project to evaluate the feasibility and desirability of such a system to improve the preservation and reference operations for some of the institution’s more heavily used archival collections. The following year, the National Archives contracted for the development of a large-scale research system. In early 1988, the institution’s Research and Evaluation Staff will begin to scan, store, and reference a test sample of over 1.5 million documents representative of its holdings. The project will experiment with and examine all facets of the conversion operation including image enhancement capability, conversion throughput, and quality control.