Intelligent Zoning and Algorithmic Conversion

Over the past 20 years, Apex has digitized over 200 million pages of cultural heritage materials going as far back as the 17th century, from handwritten presidential papers to Enlightenment era documents and historical newspapers. The driving force behind this important work is IZAAC.

IZAAC was the first platform to enable the digitization of huge stores of content previously held in library vaults. IZAAC strikes a balance between the processing power of the computer and the cognitive power of the human mind. Take, for example, this early 1900sdocument containing typed and handwritten text. In IZAAC, the operator marks the content boundaries manually, carefully identifying each granular piece of content on the page. Behind the scenes, IZAAC maintains an inventory, tying each zone to its parent page and each page to the book. Because this is a machine process in IZAAC, there is no possibility for error.

The benefits are realized throughout the downstream process, ensuring that the pages are digitized in strict sequence and to exact quality and file specifications. Keying operators, specialized in interpreting handwritten material, are presented with the image of one handwritten text block at a time. Typed text blocks are processed through OCR modules, and text is proofed and corrected for accuracy. Page text and surrounding objects are kept in lockstep, ensuring the fidelity of each page of material digitized. File sets are recompiled by IZAAC using the database of created digital objects.

You can count on achieving the highest levels of data accuracy and quality for your digitization project.