All very good points
Don’t forget to cost your time in all this. One of the factors we
considered when faced with physically having to scan hundreds of bit of
paper into the system was the time taken to scan ( as opposed to time to
then index each one which is slighlty shorter than the time it took to
manually file them)
We use a foojitso scanner , multifeed and it is most impressive compared
to the "home" type scanners - it can scan 50 A4's in a minute or so
without human intervention - if we had to place each file manally on a
flatbed it would be pointless contiuing as manpower wouldn't be enough
The biggest issue surrounding backups is that hardly anyone checks a
restore from backup - you need to do this frequently. Try to identify an
obsessional type A personality memmber of staff to delegate this to - I
am sure several names spring to mind for us all ;-)
Best wishes for the season to all
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: Occ-health is a list open to everyone with an interest in
teaching, learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Michael James
Sent: 20 December 2001 09:43
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Electronic storage of records
Further to Ruth Milner's question, Mark O'Connor's solution sounds
ideal - if you can afford the £4K. A cheaper solution is to use a
Paperport sheet scanner (approx £200) and a CD writer (approx £200).
Scan documents into your PC and then save them to CD. Mark's comments
about backup are, or course, correct. You can achieve this with a
simple tape back up device (approx £100) or by making multiple copies of
the CD's. I have a separate CD for each of my clients plus two backup
CD's which are stored away from my office. It sounds a bit complicated
but providing an efficient backup routine is established it works well.
The tape back-up is run at the end of each working day as an additional
precaution. Re-writable CD's are very cheap now and although I
acknowledge Mark's solution to be ideal, my solution costs approx £500
plus the cost of CD's. The big question with any electronic storage
medium is whether, in forty years time, it will be readable, but a
similar question could be asked about hard copy paper storage too.
Hope this is of help in exploring options.
Mike James
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