Crowley Company Scanners and Services Receive 2018 Modern Library Awards
Frederick, Md. – The Crowley Company, a worldwide leader in digital scanning solutions and scanning services, is pleased to announce that for the fourth consecutive year the firm has amassed several prestigious awards from the LibraryWorks, Inc. annual Modern Library Awards (MLA) program. The awards will be presented February 9th at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Denver, Co.
Honored are: Crowley Imaging’s conversion services (Platinum); the Zeutschel OS 14000 book scanner (Platinum); the Zeutschel zeta book copy system (Gold); Mekel Technology microfilm scanners (Gold); and the Crowley UScan+ universal film scanner (Silver).
About MLA
According to LibraryWorks, the Modern Library Awards were created to recognize the top products and services in the library industry in an unbiased format. Products and services are submitted via an application and are then posted to a private site with an enhanced description and attendant materials. These products are 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 having experience with the products or services submitted were permitted to judge, lending toward an unbiased score.
Each judge scored the product on a numeric basis from 1-10 (10 high) on a series of questions regarding functionality, value and customer service.
Jennifer Newman, LibraryWorks publisher and MLA program manager, remarks that “Crowley is a well-known scanning and imaging services vendor in the library community, reflected by their 15 cumulative Modern Library awards since the program’s inception. Their consistency in the MLA awards reflects the consistency of their organization and I’m happy to see them honored by their end-users yet again.”
A critical market
“We don’t go one day without speaking with, or responding to, librarians across the world,” says Matt McCabe, Crowley vice president of marketing and sales. “In part because of our own service bureau, we understand what it takes to digitally preserve and share the media types found in library archives and special collections. We manufacture and provide digitization solutions for every need from walk-up patron through back-office preservation and have a solution that fits every budget. I’m pleased to note that a wide diversity of scanner types and services are reflected in this year’s awards and am very appreciative of those librarians and archivists who took the time to respond to the entry survey.”
2018 Crowley Awardees
Crowley Imaging, Crowley’s in-house service bureau, has received a Platinum award for the second consecutive year. Imaging services (also known as digitization or conversion services) are used when a library has collections to be digitized or written to microfilm and may not have the expertise, equipment or personnel to perform the service in-house. Library collections scanned by Crowley Imaging include Presidential papers, bound, loose or microfilmed newspapers, yearbook collections, genealogy records and more.
The Zeutschel OS 14000 is a four-time recipient, winning Platinum the past three years and gold in its first. Originally engineered to meet a U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) request for proposal, the next generations of ILL-compatible OS 14000 scanners have become a staple to libraries that host special collections and which seek to both preserve the original materials electronically and 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.
The Mekel Technology MACH-series microfilm scanners have once again been awarded Gold. Scanning up to 1,000’ rolls of microfilm in nearly any condition, the MACH-series provides superior image quality and is used by libraries and archives worldwide. With speeds of up to 1600 images per minute and a maximum of 750 true optical dpi resolution, the Mekel MACH scanners are used for large collections or collections with distressed microfilm, including those designated for the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).
First released in 2011, the Zeutschel zeta is also a multi-year honoree, garnering both Gold and Platinum awards. A walk-up scanner for students, researchers, staff and every day patrons, the zeta is a replacement for traditional copiers, bringing today’s technology into hundreds of U.S. and international libraries. View the most recent zeta video here.
Another multi-year winner, the UScan+ Universal Film (UF) scanner series is a replacement to the old reader-printers found in many research and reading rooms and are used by patrons to view images from microform, including microfilm, microfiche, aperture cards, photo negatives and slides. Patrons can save their selected images to USB or send them electronically through email, Dropbox™ and other popular programs.
For more information about these and other Crowley scanners and services, visit www.thecrowleycompany.com.
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About The Crowley Company
The Crowley Company is a world leader in digital scanning technologies and provides an extensive number of digital document and film conversion services to the library, academic, publishing, commercial, government and archive sectors, from microfilm to large-format scanners. 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, and Wicks and Wilson.
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. The LibraryWorks resources help 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
The Modern Library Awards (MLAs) is a review program designed to recognize elite products and services 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.