RSC25 | OCR they? A data project to estimate how many ILL borrowing documents have optical character recognition
This session will present a project where the University of Minnesota Libraries evaluated PDF files delivered to patrons to get a better sense of how many documents have OCR versus those that do not. They will share findings, including the unexpected issues that surfaced.
What percentage of documents delivered to patrons through ILL have Optical Character Recognition (OCR)? At the University of Minnesota Libraries, we set out to answer this question. Requests for articles and chapters are filled from both electronic and print resources. Electronic resources are usually already machine-readable, but scans from print require the application of OCR or later remediation. For libraries looking at using a fee-based OCR tool, knowing this percentage will help with cost estimates. Additionally, OCR remediation can take time, so knowing how many documents will likely need to go through the process will help practitioners and vendors as they think through the workflow possibilities. This session will present a project where we evaluated the PDF files delivered to our patrons to get a better sense of how many documents have OCR versus those that do not. We evaluated documents delivered during two months in 2023 and one month in 2025. We will share our findings, including the unexpected issues that surfaced.
Speakers
Melissa Eighmy Brown, Director
Content Acquisition & Delivery
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities Libraries
Guy Peterson
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities Libraries
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Date
07 mai 2025
Heure
2:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Eastern Daylight Time, North America [UTC -4]
Registration access
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This session is part of the 2025 OCLC Resource Sharing Conference, a virtual event that brings together the resource sharing community for learning and connection.