Works of Winston Churchill and seminary scholars—even a legendary touchdown pass from Doug Flutie—are all getting digital makeovers.
When it comes to digitally
converting college records and archives, Orlando. Fla.-based XOS Digital is hardly alone. But it may stake claim
as having the coolest “stuff” to work on within this tech niche.
That’s because the
company’s XOS Vault solution is in the forefront of digitalizing film, video,
audio, photo and print assets for collegiate sports libraries. It’s literally
taking tons of bulky boxes filled with tapes, dusty reels of film and miles
upon miles of microfilm and transferring them into Web-accessible formats.
Among the highlights of
what’s being captured: Rose Bowl game footage going back 95 years, including
original chariot races that once took place before the game, as well as press
conferences, network broadcasts, and historic luncheon events with coaches and
players. Also being captured are immortal moments like Boston College
quarterback Doug Flutie’s “Hail Mary” touchdown pass that nailed an improbable
victory over the University of Miami on Nov. 23, 1984, and the thrilling 2006 national championship in which
quarterback Vince Young and the University of Texas beat a favored USC squad
featuring two Heisman winners, quarterback Matt Leinart and running back Reggie
Bush.
XOS Vault is undertaking
these conversion/preservation projects for dozens of top schools, including the
entire Pac-10 and Southeastern conferences. The digital asset management system
captures the content, then tags it with metadata so it can be indexed in a
library that’s searchable down to a specific game play. The various versions of
Vault allow for hosted solution products located in a Tier 3 facility, and
turnkey digital asset management systems that allow for distribution onsite
from the school to media partners.
“We’ve empowered college
teams to enhance asset management for operations, as well as for fan
distribution and access,” says Dan Aton, founder and chief innovation officer
for XOS Digital. “Some of the greatest value here is making these assets
indexed and searchable. The digital content management is also highly secure,
as we’re partnering with Time Warner on data center support through an office
that also provides managed network solutions for organizations like NASA.”
Other companies are also
discovering ways to take advantage of the demand for digital records/archives
among higher-education customers:
In Hillsdale, Mich.,
Hillsdale College is taking original research papers—including those authored
by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill—and converting them to
e-formats through ImageNow software from Shawnee, Kan.-based Perceptive
Software. The project will also include student transcript archives that go
back to 1844.
Norwalk, Conn.-based
Xerox is using its DocuMate and CopyCo products to convert student records at
Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, eventually allowing students there to retrieve needed forms via
the Web instead of going to on-campus administrative offices.
ImageSilo,
from Greenwood Village, Colo.-based Digitech Systems, is converting a
large chunk of student records at Wake Forest University through its Enterprise
Content Management (ECM) solution. Many of the college's records,
some of which go back to 1834, had been stored since the 1950s in a
large walk-in vault where they were deteriorating. Others were kept via a
microfilm process that was cumbersome to operate and unreliable when it came to
producing records that were legible. To date, the university has digitally
archived records from the 1970s to present.
El Segundo, Calif.-based
ScanDigital has gone from transferring family photos and home movies to
digitizing old slides for the UCLA medical school, so the slides can be used
for educational presentations and student research.
A user comment on this articlePosted on: 04-14-10 | By: AnonymousAm glad to see that colleges are providing students with this type of rich library of resources!
