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Name: Aetopia
Headquarters: Belfast, Northern Ireland
Industry: Media
Products and Services:Digital asset management
Web: www.aetopia.com
Challenge• Vulnerable original documents
• Deterioration due to excessive use
Solution • Sequential scanning, digiti-sation, Cloud OCR and indexing
• Cloud-based Digital Asset Management
Results• Powerful online search• Global accessibility • Better archive management• Improved customer service
The Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) is the official archivefor Northern Ireland. Its role is to preserve records of historical, social andcultural importance and make them available for the information, educationand enjoyment of the public. PRONI has significantly re-vamped the StreetDirectories website with a radically new User Interface and the latest Cloudtechnologies from Aetopia and ABBYY.
Case Study
ABBYY Cloud Solution Helps Aetopia Modernise Directories for the PublicRecords Office of Northern Ireland
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Solutions for the Public Sector
Solution
Recently PRONI embarked on a project todigitise every page in the directories (ap-proximately 20,000) and put them online,allowing genealogy researchers around theglobe to search on every single word. Thescanned documents are stored on theCloud using Aetopia’s Digital Asset Manage-ment system, MediaCore, and every singleword is digitised and positioned usingABBYY’s latest Cloud OCR SDK running onMicrosoft Windows Azure.
“We provide cloud and on-premise installa-tions, so were looking for a cloud-based OCRengine to avoid the need to install softwarein multiple locations,” says Aidan McGrath,CEO of Aetopia. “An associated ISV who hasused the ABBYY technology for many yearsrecommended we look at ABBYY based ontheir reputation for the highest quality OCR.”
Challenge
One of the most commonly used resourcesof the Public Records Office is the Street Di-rectories that date from 1819 to 1900.These are valuable old books containing alisting of the names, addresses and occupa-tions of the inhabitants of Northern Irelandas well as lists of commercial establish-ments operating in the cities and surround-ing towns. They are a vital resource forhistorical and genealogical researchers andare an extremely useful source for all kindsof research such as tracing the location of aparticular person or checking when a firmwas in business. Genealogists can, for ex-ample, search for an address to find outwho lived there many years ago.
These volumes, which were previously onopen access in the PRONI Search Room,were very heavily used by the public. Thepaper in some of the volumes is very fragileand they are therefore at risk. Some pageshad already been lost or damaged and fur-ther handling would have endangered theirlong-term preservation. Therefore, it was de-cided to scan the directories and to providea search facility which would enable usersto find key words in a section of a directory,in a particular directory or in any of the di-rectories.
“We were looking for a cloud-based OCR engine to avoid theneed to install software in multiple locations.”
Aidan McGrath, CEO of Aetopia
In addition to a more friendly and intuitive user interface thenew site now includes ‘faceted searching’ which allows usersto explore the directory set by applying various filters. It isalso possible to apply 'search equivalents' which allows read-ers to equate “Jas.” with James or “Geo.” with George, for ex-ample, so that if they search for one the other term is alsoreturned. Individual search terms are highlighted and userscan un-tick the individual search terms to refresh the searchresults instantly.
Results
The ABBYY Cloud OCR service was simple to integrate, effec-tive, and fitted in well with Aetopia’s architecture, particularlythat there was no need to purchase additional servers to han-dle the OCR processing. The service scales on demand, a trueadvantage when a project calls for high volume processing ina short period or occasional peak loads occur. In addition tothe excellent quality of OCR results ABBYY was also able tode-skew and improve the visual quality original scans, whichwas seen as a major benefit to PRONI. The detailed OCR posi-tional information (provided as XML) was invaluable to theproject, as it allowed the Aetopia team of developers to createa sophisticated 'Search Term Highlighting' feature for theStreet Directories application, leading to extensive positivefeedback from end users.
“The ABBYY developer account was easy to set up and theportal provided all the required documentation and assistancein getting started, including a downloadable sample code,”says McGrath. “The pricing options suited us for PRONIStreet Directories as it was a bulk process and we knew theexact number of documents that needed to be sent to ABBYY.ABBYY Cloud OCR has been a consistent win for us.”
The Street Directories online system complements the exist-ing databases and records which are available electronically,
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such as the Ulster Covenant, the Freeholders Records and theWills Indexes. The next chapter in the continuing work ofPRONI is to make more of its resources available online.
To access the directories:http://streetdirectories.proni.gov.uk/
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Case Study
ABBYY is a leading provider of text recognition and document con-version technologies and services. Its versatile product portfolio fordocument processing and information retrieval is available on variousplatforms and devices. ABBYY offers a broad range of solutions designed for specific business and industry needs. Organisationsall over the world rely on ABBYY offerings to optimise their paper-intensive business processes. More information at www.ABBYY.com
ABOUT ABBYY
“We looked at ABBYY based on their reputa-tion for the highest quality OCR. Their CloudOCR has been a consistent win for us.”
Aidan McGrath, CEO of Aetopia
© 2013 ABBYY, the ABBYY logo, FlexiCapture, FlexiLayout, FormReader, FineReader are either registered trademarks or trademarks of ABBYY Software Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
