Crowley Company Scanners Receive Platinum, Gold Modern Library Awards in 2016 Competition
Frederick, Md. – The Crowley Company, a worldwide leader in digital and analog scanning and capture solutions and services, is pleased to announce it has received three platinum and a gold award from the LibraryWorks, Inc. second annual Modern Library Awards (MLA) program. The awards will be presented January 8-12 at the American Library Association MidWinter Meeting in Boston, Ma.
The MLA’s were created to recognize the top products in the library industry in a truly unbiased format. Products were submitted via a simple application and were then posted to a private site with an enhanced description and attendant materials. These products were batched into small groups and sent to the LibraryWorks database of more than 80,000 librarians at public, K-12, academic and special libraries. Only customers who had experience with these products in their facilities were permitted to judge the products, lending toward an unbiased score.
Each judge scored the product on a numeric basis from 1-10, with 10 high. Only products scoring above 6.5 were issued awards based on a scoring level.
“As the primary end-users of archival preservation scanners, patron scanners and special collection digitization services, the library market is integral to our business,” states Christopher Crowley, company president. “The MLAs gave us an ideal opportunity to feature scanners that fit each category and it’s truly an honor that the librarians, archivists and professional staff who use these scanners felt them worthy of accolades at the platinum and gold levels.”
First awarded gold in 2015, this year the Zeutschel OS 14000 received the higher platinum rating. Originally engineered to meet a U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) request for proposal, this next generation of OS 14000 scanners has found its way into libraries that host special collections and which seek to both preserve the original materials electronically and to give greater access to these materials via the internet. The OS 14000 is particularly gentle on bound and older materials and offers superior image quality for archival preservation. Watch the video.
A first time nominee and a platinum award winner, the Mekel Technology MACH-series microfilm scanners, manufactured by The Crowley Company, offers libraries with extensive microfilm collections a digitization tool that offers excellent image quality while simultaneously being highly-productive, easy to operate and virtually maintenance-free. Available in three versions – the MACH5, the MACH10 and the MACH12 – the MACH-series is powered by the proprietary Quantum Suite of scanning and processing software, which sets it apart from the competition. Often used for the digitization of archival newspaper collections, the Mekel MACH-series is compliant with the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) requirements. NDNP is a partnership between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH).
Also a first time nominee and platinum honoree is the Zeutschel OS 12002-series book scanner. Offered as both a book copy system for walk-up patrons and as a back-office digitization scan system, the 12002-series is a mid-range overhead tabletop scanner for books, newspapers and large-size documents such as certificates, drawings, maps, posters, photographs and more. With its rear, glare-free illumination, the 12002-series is not dependent on ambient light, scans in less than one second and offers an excellent cost-performance ratio.
First released in 2011, the Zeutschel zeta is a multi-year honoree. A walk-up scanner for students, researchers, staff and every day patrons, the zeta is often a replacement for outdated copiers, bringing today’s technology into hundreds of U.S. and international libraries. Easy to use, the zeta saves money on consumables like paper and ink, reduces staff time (no paper jams; intuitive operation) and allows patrons to use the same information technology in the library that they use at home (email, cloud, USB and more). View the most recent zeta video here.
Jennifer Newman, LibraryWorks associate publisher and MLA program manager reiterated her comments from the inaugural program in 2015, saying “I was once again thrilled with The Crowley Company’s excellent performance. Crowley is a huge name in archival preservation and records management and does it all from manufacturing and distribution to imaging services.”
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About The Crowley Company
The Crowley Company is a world leader in digital and analog film technologies and provides an extensive number of digital document and film conversion services to the library, academic, publishing, commercial, government and archive sectors. The company manufactures, distributes and services high-speed microfilm, microfiche, aperture card, book and document scanners, microfilm duplicators, film processors and micrographics equipment. Manufactured brands include Crowley, Mekel Technology, Wicks and Wilson, HF Processors and Extek Microsystems.
About LibraryWorks
LibraryWorks helps administrators to make informed decisions about library technology, automation and software, collection development and management, facilities and furnishings, staffing, purchasing, and other areas that drive effective strategic planning and day-to-day operations. Our family of resources can enable you to identify best practices, monitor trends, evaluate new products and services, apply for grants and funding, post or find a job, and even enjoy some library humor.
About the Modern Library Awards program
Modern Library Awards (MLAs), a product-review program designed to recognize elite products in the market which can help library management personnel enhance the quality-of-experience for the library user and increase the performance of their library systems.