Scanning is a good market for a lot of reprographics shops, and it comes in many forms. One area that is somewhat untapped is the “cultural heritage” market. This market was among the topics that came up during the IRgA Zoom meeting on scanning in December. (Want to listen to the whole Zoom meeting? Click here.)
Here are some key points about that market taken from the Zoom.
What documents are part of “cultural heritage”?
In general, these are documents that are part of society’s history, such as old maps, photos, certain types of artwork, surveys, municipal drawings, rare books, etc.
These documents differ from regular municipal documents in that their value is more cultural or historic than practical. You might already be scanning a trove of old permit applications from the county government using a sheet-fed scanner, but the county archivist will not want their maps from the 1700s fed through that same scanner.
Cultural heritage documents also differ from art scanning – though the equipment used can often be the same – in that these documents are historical in nature, not decorative. So while the client needs a high quality scan, they are less concerned about color accuracy, brush strokes, texture reproduction, etc.
Where are these documents held?
Museums, historical societies, municipal offices, universities, libraries, archives, and other such institutions.
“There are federal libraries spread around the country that hold cultural heritage documents,” said Ed Delaney, director of business development for Scanwide, which makes overhead scanners that are often used for these documents, in the Zoom meeting. “So you could do a chat GPT and get the federal libraries in your markets and pursue those. They also have rare books, oversized books, requiring book scanners.
“Another market that we spent a good deal of time on is museums. There are a couple ways to approach this market. There’s a national alliance of American museums. They have a national meeting if you want to get a feel for the different types of service providers in this market.
“We have an install at Smithsonian and a couple other larger museums, but also importantly, you should look at the local museums in your cities and state. And each state has a museum association for the state. As an example, in Ohio there are about 80 different museums.
“A lot of the cities and counties have their own collection of historical documents, cultural heritage documents. We've got an install in the city of Pittsburgh. They go back to the mid 1800s. And they just really started digitizing those documents about three years ago.
“Another strong marketplace would be archivists. Each state has, in addition to museum associations, has an archivist association, and they have quarterly or annual meetings where you can get in front of them. They represent colleges, state and local government archivists, as well as the historical society archivists.”
What’s the sales cycle for this type of work?
Probably longer than with your normal AEC clients.
“The sales cycle for those tend to be a little bit longer because your local entities tend to have budget restrictions,” said David Gerbholz, sales manager, North America, for Image Access, another company that makes scanners than can be used for these applications. “And typically, a county or a state entity that is requesting information or pricing wants to put into next year's budget, right? But all of these are still very good markets.”
What equipment do you need?
This type of work is best done on a scanner that can handle damaged documents, such as a flatbed or overhead scanner.
These documents are returned after being scanned, not destroyed like often happens with more common old documents.
The digital versions of the cultural documents are often uploaded so that interested people, such as researchers, can access them through the museum or archive website. Thus the deliverable from the reprographics firm should accommodate that.
Want to listen to the whole Zoom meeting? Click here.