Digitising an analogue work archive and connecting it to a digital ICT structure
The assignment was not only about scanning, but about ordering, classification and later retrieval. SRE staff reduced 1,000,000 folders to 4,300 logical directories.
A case from 2dA practice, early 2013, in cooperation with information specialist KBenP.
A practice example in which ordering, classification and retrievability had to be set up before scanning started.
Schiphol Real Estate BV
Commercial real estate / airport real estate
Analogue work archive, including A4 and A3 floor plans
KBenP, advice and information architecture
A real estate organisation needed to secure its analogue work archive while making an existing digital folder structure usable. Faster scanning was not the answer. The question was how to create a structure that would still hold up years later.
“Developing such an innovative solution in so little time is simply an art. Especially when digitisation has to be fast and good, innovation and flexibility are the key words at 2dA.”
Berny Bergmeester, SRE Digitisation project lead, 2013
Original quote in Dutch: “Zo'n innovatieve oplossing ontwikkelen binnen zo weinig tijd is eigenlijk gewoon kunstig! Zeker als digitalisering snel én goed moet, zijn innovativiteit en flexibiliteit de key words waar het draait bij 2dA.”
When physical and digital ordering overlap, structure beforehand is often more important than scanning speed. This case shows how subject knowledge and digital structure can reinforce each other.
Unchanged since September 2013. This is the original casecard from that period.