Author Archive
176 Year Old Newspaper Fights Slavery; Echos Today’s News
Last August we received a plea via email: “We want a scan of four pages of a fragile 1841 newspaper that is approximately 16 7/8″ x 22 3/4″. I suspect this is too small a job for your company, but I thought I’d try. We are a small museum with a pitifully small budget.” How could we resist? What Jane Rissler, director of the Jefferson County (W Va.) Museum and author of the email, didn’t know is that we keep…
Joshilyn Jackson: Meet The Author (and the scanners) at #alamw17
The Crowley Company is getting ready to kick off our trade show season in Booth #834 with next week’s American Library Association’s Midwinter conference in Atlanta, Ga. The exhibit runs from Friday, January 20th through Monday, January 23rd and offers us a chance to meet with face-to-face with librarians who have, over the decades, become customers and friends. The exhibit gives them a chance to see what’s new in the industry while allowing us to discover the new technology and preservation…
Celebrate and Appreciate
It seems fitting for our last post of 2016 to feature just a few of the many employees that make the Crowley world go ‘round. Each year at the corporate holiday celebration, those with significant anniversaries for the year are recognized (“significant” is defined as a five year span). Although not all are present because of geography, each is mentioned by name and for their contribution to the company. Below, please meet our 2016 anniversary notables and join us in…
Staying Power: A Conversation with The Crowley’s
The following blog post is an article published last month in IDMi Magazine. When one considers the changes in technology in the analog and digital imaging industries over the past four decades, it seems nearly impossible that a small firm has been able to survive – and thrive – while remaining an independent entity in a very narrow, niche market. Yet for 36 years, The Crowley Company has been a staple in the worlds of archival preservation, digitization and records…
Scanner Replacements: When Is The Time?
With many items, it’s easy to tell when it’s time to upgrade. Car, dryer, hot water heater…each has its own death knell “clunk” that results in a cash register “ching.” Other items, particularly those steeped in technology – phone, computer, cable services – lead to a war of want vs. need. Do we want the latest or do we need the latest? This same dilemma faces owners of front end capture systems that may still be serviceable, but which are…
Microfilm Theology
Every once in a while life hands you an easy button. In this case, the button is one of the easiest blogs I’ve never had to write. Last week, Crowley’s West Coast hardware representative, Ed Berkowitz, shared an article written by Ernie Smith, editor of Tedium. Titled “The Strange History of Microfilm, Which Will Be With Us for Centuries,” the writing is entertaining, educational and brings home the message we oft repeat here: microfilm lasts. Preach, Brother Smith! From Dancer…
Expanding Our Vision: The Crowley MACHCAM 71MP Hits the Road
What am I doing at the AIA Vision Show in Boston in a booth without a scanner? Short answer: I’m helping to launch Crowley’s brand new imaging and machine vision camera, the MACHCAM 71MP. Longer answer? I’m learning. A lot. This is a vertical with which we’ve had much in common, but always from the client side. Today, we’re vendors of – from what I have seen – one of the most exciting new products on the floor (well, in…
Cecil County Records Aid Research on Black History
February is the month dedicated to honoring the contributions of African Americans to U.S. history, chosen in part to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass, an escaped Maryland slave and national leader of the abolitionist movement, and Abraham Lincoln, the nation’s 16th President, under whose term slavery was formally abolished. On the heels of a preservation project on which Crowley Imaging and the Historical Society of Cecil County (Md.) (HSCC) collaborated, we spoke to historian and HSCC board member, Mike…
Scanners Save Lives
Slightly misleading headline, but 100 percent true: in this case, though, it’s not the hardware but the professionals who run them that made a difference. On Monday, February 1st, twenty three staff members from St. John Properties’ Westview Business Park in Frederick, MD – 12 of them from The Crowley Company – participated in a Red Cross Blood Drive coordinated by volunteer (and Crowley relative) Kathleen Crowley. “I’ve been volunteering with the Red Cross for about 30 years,” explains Crowley,…
42 Years; Seven Staff; 150 Anniversaries
A recent article in The Telegraph asks the question, “Have you been working for the same company for too long?” It notes that the average time spent at a single company in the United States is 4.6 years and guesstimates that figures for the United Kingdom are similar. It goes on to give the pros and cons of corporate longevity. For seven of Crowley’s Wicks and Wilson division staff, the answer to the question is – thankfully – “No.” For…