Digitization and Hosting Services
What We Offer
Digitization
CRKN’s digitization studio is designed for bulk scanning of materials (paper and microform) for both standard and custom digitization projects. We are also equipped to perform digitization of photographs and negatives on a limited basis.
For standard digitization, images are digitized at 300 PPI (pixels per inch) in either colour or greyscale and saved as high-quality TIFF images with an accompanying searchable PDF. Each image is manually reviewed for quality control and completeness.
Images are de-skewed and processed with optical character recognition (OCR) software. Uncorrected OCR output is included and used to create searchable PDF derivatives. Image and OCR quality is highly dependent on the nature and condition of the originals. OCR quality is also dependent on the language and alphabet used in the materials.
Digital files are provided to the client on a portable USB hard drive or via file transfer protocol (FTP). For digitization-only work, CRKN does not retain copies of the digital images once they have been received and accepted by the client.
Our team is happy to consider custom requests, such as digitization to alternative specifications and standards, and oversized or fragile materials.
Questions? Contact us at digitization@crkn.ca.
Digitization Fees
CATEGORY | DESCRIPTION | CRKN MEMBER FEE | NON-MEMBER FEE |
Digitization | Bound items (e.g. books) on v-scanner | $3.50 per item + $0.79 per image | $5.00 per item + $1.10 per image |
| Bound items (e.g. books) on a flatbed scanner | $3.50 per item + $0.97 per image | $5.00 per item + $1.35 per image | |
| Foldouts scanning | $8.35 - $16.70 per foldout | $11.70 - $23.40 per foldout | |
| Unbound/Disbound items (fragile) | $3.50 per item + $2.57 per image | $5.00 per item + $3.60 per image | |
| Unbound items (high-speed scanning) | $3.50 per item + $0.36 per image | $5.00 per item + $0.50 per image | |
| Microfilm (serials) | $3.50 per item + $0.52 per image | $5.00 per item + $0.73 per image | |
| Microfilm (monographs) | $3.50 per item + $0.20 per image | $5.00 per item + $0.28 per image | |
| Microfiche | $3.50 per item + $0.20 per image | $5.00 per item + $0.28 per image | |
| Slides (Slide scanner) | $1.49 per image | $2.10 per image | |
| Photographs | $15.00 per image | $21.00 per image | |
| Negatives | $9.74 per image | $13.60 per image | |
OCR | Books, magazines, etc. | $0.04 per image | $0.06 per image |
| Newspapers | $0.05 per image | $0.07 per image | |
Metadata | Metadata creation and review for integration into Canadiana | $140 per hour | $195 per hour |
Administrative Fees | Project management / Administration Fee | $175 Flat fee | $245 Flat fee |
Shipping and materials | Shipping costs to and from and materials (hard drives) | To be determined | To be determined |
Hosting and Digital Preservation
CRKN offers hosting and digital preservation to digitization clients at no additional cost for collections joining Canadiana.
Hosting in Canadiana is available for published materials (books, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, etc.) that fall under our Canadiana Criteria and Priorities. Hosting your collection in Canadiana allows researchers around the world to access your content free of charge on our open-source platform owned by Canadian university libraries. Your collection will also benefit from our ongoing user-centered development work on the Canadiana infrastructure.
Materials hosted on Canadiana are deposited in the CRKN Trustworthy Digital Repository (TDR), our industry-leading digital preservation platform, ensuring long-term security of your digitized files.
Custom Portals
CRKN also hosts custom portals for clients. Clients can make their content accessible and preserve it through the Canadiana infrastructure via a branded interface. Materials hosted in these custom portals do not become part of the Canadiana collections but remain separate collections that share an underlying hosting and access infrastructure. Clients are responsible for their content, as well as for ensuring metadata matches the appropriate schema, and for submitting edited metadata files. CRKN staff will work with clients on periodic updates so that they may benefit from ongoing infrastructure developments. Please note: CRKN is currently not taking new clients for custom portals.
Custom Portal Fees
CATEGORY | DESCRIPTION | CRKN MEMBER FEE | NON-MEMBER FEE |
Preservation & Access | Annual fee for storage, preservation, access and hosting
| $700 per TB 1 TB min threshold | $875 per TB 1 TB min threshold |
Support | Annual maintenance fee | $2,248 | $2,856 |
Admin Fee | Annual administration fee | $250 | $312 |
Set-up Fee | One-time fee for initial set-up | $2,500 | $3,125 |
Customization & Maintenance | Development time for customization beyond Canadiana standard set-up | $175 per hr. | $219 per hr. |
| Maintenance fee for minor/major updates to portal | $175 per hr. | $219 per hr. |