Document Images

Since its inception in 1997, the Teranet Document Services Centre (DSC) has proven to be a vital link to both the automation project and Teraview clients. The DSC's core competency is data capture and conversion – converting hard copy records to image indexing them, making them accessible to internal and external claims for viewing. The DSC captures records of varied quality dependent on factors such as age and legibility and from several mediums such as microfilm, paper and Mylar.

The DSC manages the largest land-related image database in North America. This database currently contains over 180 million images and continues to grow.

Archival microfilm rolls crated by staff at Land Registry Offices are retrieved from the Ontario Government Records Centre, scanned, quality controlled (QC) and stored on CD ROMs creating a supplementary inventory at the DSC. There are currently over 10,000 CD's housed at the DSC locates requested documents on these CD's, then indexes, conditions and QCs the images and loads them into the appropriate image database for clients to view.

The DSC also has a team that travels to various LRO's in order to scan and indexing all plans/drawings and large bound and oversized books. To date we have visited 39 LRO's and captured over 650,000 plans and over 1000 books.

Requests for documents falling outside the DSC inventory range from internal and external clients are sent to the corresponding LRO to be processed. Support staff in the LRO scan the requested document, index it and transmit the images to the DSC. These images are then QC'd and loaded into the appropriate image database. The support staff in each LRO also captures all new registered documents on a daily basis, and all new registered plans weekly in order to maintain a current records inventory of each LRO in our image database.

Images of active POLARIS documents and plans are loaded into the Teraview image database. These images are available for viewing remotely by Teraview customers. As an additional service, the DSC also provides hard copies of documents and plans by either courier of fax to clients as requested.

Various types of equipment are utilized at the DSC in order to facilitate handling the diverse records encountered. The DSC has the ability to scan, index and print large plans or drawings, convert and index microfilm rolls and scan regular size paper documents. Technologies currently in use at the DSC include OCR; voice read-back; bar coding (both virtual and physical); auto indexing; watermarking and annotating.

Driven by high customer expectations, the DSC continually exceeds the needs of both internal and external clients. By ensuring the good working relationships and open lines of communication with all customers, the DSC strives for the most efficient, quality solutions for records retrieval and delivery challenges. The accomplishments of the DSC demonstrate their capabilities and potential for future growth in areas of records capture and management.