Steps To Follow When Doing A Yearbook Scanning

By Christine Schmidt


Going down memory lane especially from your high school days is important for the sake of reminding yourself of the good old days or simply make references from the past. With the help of a yearbook, this is made possible and can be easily accessed from the library of the school. To keep these memories alive, most institutions are inclined to do Yearbook Scanning.

As years have gone by, technology has improved allowing people to have safer and better ways of storing written materials which they can access from anywhere. Digitizing the yearbook allows schools to safeguard all these details for years without losing them. Books are susceptible to accidents, wearing out and even getting lost but digitizing them prevents that.

Choosing to digitize these books will need you to purchase a scanner. These machines are available in stationery stores going from different sizes with multiple uses. You should be keen when purchasing one, making sure that you get a manual. You will also need to have a storage platform such as a computer. A school library computer will be enough for this work. Make sure you clean the glass surface before you start using it.

Since you will want to maintain the integrity of the photos and pages, you will need to scan them to produce clear materials. This will only be done if the documents and photographs are free of dirt and dust. To prevent this, you should use a microfiber cloth which helps in wiping off dust particles from picture and documents. Make sure you perform this before beginning the task.

Before you start the process, you will need to have decided on a naming convention for the materials that will be scanned. This should be done using the school computer. Come up with a good naming system, ensuring that you have a precise name for each file considering the fact that it will be accessed by so many people. Ensure that the names are short and simple, basing each folder with the precise year that the book was made.

The next step is the placement of the pages and photographs on the machine. When doing so, you need to be detail oriented this means you have to be keen while placing the picture on the glass platform. Usually, the document you are scanning may not fit the whole glass leaving some background color to be seen. To avoid this, use cropping tools of the machine to come up with a fitting material.

At times, you may want to use the glass space optimally to scan more than one document as much as this is a good idea, if not properly done, it may end up ruining the book. Therefore, when placing more than one photograph on the platform, ensure that you properly arrange them, placing them in such a way that it will be easier for you to use the cropping tools.

For such an important task, there should be less room for errors. This can be done by having the initial team that prepared the books carry out this work. They should be very detail oriented and careful enough not to mix up details of the materials.




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