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Imaging is rapidly gaining usage across businesses and institutions because of its special technology which allows huge numbers of words, pictures and other illustrations to be reduced to a tiny fraction of the space needed to store originals. The emergence of imaging is being seen in numerous and varied applications around the world. Some of them chronicled in the article are: — Images on billions of pieces of paper are being transformed to image systems at the US National Archives. There, documents are stored in less than 0.5% of the space required on paper. — Businesses in the United States have an estimated 324 billion paper documents stored — 95% of business information is stored on paper. Corporations are seeking ways to apply imaging systems to this problem. The Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) estimates that the market for imaging systems will be $6.8 billion by 1993. — Imaging technology is established to enable users to use a kind of electronic shorthand to reduce such illustrations as engineering drawings from 8 Mb to 300 kb — thus enhancing ability to transmit and share such drawings at remote sites. — Banks have a massive need to use imaging systems to process checks, now a time‐consuming and expensive task. Since all of this work is now done by humans, use of imaging eliminates the repetitive and boring aspect of the work. — Electronic filing systems can retrieve file folders in a matter of seconds. Ordinary file folders require manual handling and misfiling is a problem. Insurance claims processing requires massive amounts of paperwork and storage. With imaging systems, these claims can be electronically processed and available to remote users. — Companies such as American Express, American Airlines and American Hospital Corporation all are using imaging systems to gain competitive advantage in dealing with their enormous loads of paperwork.

The Information Centre at De Montfort University Milton Keynes is carrying out a three year research project known as the ELINOR Electronic Library project, which will work towards the creation of a large, indexed collection of electronic texts and images accessible to the students and staff via desktop workstations. The pilot phase will build on the existing information network and use the latest document image processing (DIP) and text retrieval technologies to set up a central and secure location for the data. At this stage of the project, the recommended course texts are not available in electronic formats, so the priority was to assess the suitability of a DIP system for converting printed works into machine‐readable text and image files. Each electronic document will contain a searchable table of contents, abstract, back‐of‐the‐book index data, and, appended to this information will be a folder of image pages. This paper outlines the investigative stages in evaluating and selecting a DIP system, and finally, covers the shortcomings of using a commercial DIP system for electronic libraries.

What if you went to the public library and you were only allowed to check out books from one shelf — and all the books had to be in the same category? Such limited access would prohibit you from finding, and using, the information you needed.

Introduction During the last year many document imaging systems, which are based on the storage of compressed digitised images on optical disk and of various sizes and configurations, have been installed in Europe for a variety of applications. These include records management, correspondence management, transaction processing, litigation management and others. Some are single function, filing and retrieval systems; others involve the integration of many technologies, systems, and products from many vendors to give complex configurations that are tying together many business functions within an organisation's operations.

The ELINOR electronic library system is a well integrated, fully functioning system implemented at De Montfort University in 1993. The system currently contains the full contents of some 35 000‐page course materials assisting the teaching and learning of one undergraduate course. The core software for the system is PixTex/EFS, a free text retrieval system with well integrated imaging functions. A usage statistics collection and management subsystem and a printing control subsystem were developed in‐house later for copyright management and other management purposes. This paper presents the various aspects of the ELINOR electronic library system including its database, browsing, searching, printing, document capturing, managing, architecture, the user aspect, and the pros and cons of the system.

The purpose of the article is to present the organizational, logistic, and technological problems in reengineering established real estate library business processes to inform other practitioners.

The article is based on the approach taken in one organisation. This paper presents the organizational, logistic, and technological problems in reengineering established real estate library business processes by considering a real case study, although the identify of the firm is not revealed.

The information management literature is strewn with bits and pieces on document imaging and its perceived benefits through increased technology. The business process is more complex than the sales literature suggests. Imaging projects begin with a paper backlog that requires preparation, organization, taxonomy, and elimination of redundancy through document analysis. Personnel, budget, and administration need to be allocated. Simultaneously, a document management system must be selected, data warehouse space allocated, and a design storyboard constructed.

The case study is from the private sector, but there may be other aspects to consider in developing the return on investment argument in other sectors.

How will the paper backlog be eliminated forever? The answer lies in reengineering the entire real estate library business process, transforming the real estate document library into an information management decision‐making tool for those managers involved in selling, buying, and managing property assets

This paper reflects practical lessons learned and will help other professionals who are considering digitization.

The publication of the British Standards Institute (BSI) Code of Practice for Legal Admissibility of Information Stored on Electronic Document Management Systems — PD 0008 has focused attention on how the courts may react when confronted with documents generated from document imaging systems. To judge by the large attendance at the recent series of conferences to discuss the Code of Practice, this is an area of increasing interest.

Discusses the issues associated with a surge in information demand in a relatively small organization. Introduces the idea of imaging and text retrieval to handle information demand. Discusses the criteria used by the Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) organization to make its decision on selecting a product. Presents situations in which use of the imaging and text retrieval system has had significant impact on the day‐to‐day conduct of business in the organization.

The desirability of electronic document delivery systems has been argued for years and the reasons for the slow progress of the idea are discussed. An explanation of the technical background is provided followed by some examples of electronic means of information distribution such as facsimile and disc‐based systems. Some experimental projects are described and the article concludes with a description of document image processing systems used for business purposes which have a number of features in common with delivery systems.

Invoices, bills of lading, purchase orders, and the tons of costly paper transactions written by businesses each year may become relics of the past as industries implement Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). EDI, forecast to grow 73% annually over the next five years, could erode the stacks of paper files and bring many companies into the twenty‐first century with instant, direct transfer of business documents. A direct result of this growth, according to a new 199‐page report by Frost & Sullivan on The Electronic Data Interchange Market in the US. (♯A 1911) is the development of document format standards that enable computer‐to‐computer transmission of business forms to multiple industries.