Blog
Selling to the Competition
I recently interviewed a client for an upcoming case study on Mekel Technology microfilm and microfiche scanners. The client represents a service bureau and asked a question we hear often, “We’re Crowley competitors. How do you represent us and yourselves at the same time?” Good question. Crowley has several divisions: research and development; manufacturing; hardware sales; technical support and Crowley Imaging, our own service bureau. In addition to selling to service bureaus, with which we compete, we also manufacture…
Behind the Film: Creating and Maintaining Microfilm
In a recent blog post, we continued the discussion on why microfilm as a preservation media remains relevant in today’s archival and records management industries due to its long lifespan, utility for disaster recovery, image quality, and other factors. As a follow-up to this conversation, I was curious about the behind-the-scenes and wanted to discover how people preserve information on microfilm. Fortunately, there is a fully-staffed conversion service bureau just a few yards from where I sit, and I was…
On Father’s Day: Jerry Crowley
The upcoming Father’s Day weekend seemed like a good reason to find out more about Jerry Crowley, the founder of Crowley Micrographics (now The Crowley Company). I spent a few minutes with his middle sons, Christopher and Pat, and heard stories amusing, pragmatic and wildly politically incorrect. All of which I found intriguing (and only some of which you’ll read about). “My Dad was what you would call honest to a fault,” says Christopher, now company president. “He gave honesty…
“Conventional data backup is not a preservation process”
Why the microfilm conversation continues A few days ago, I posted this comment to several relevant LinkedIn groups: “Interesting headline in USA Today, but misleading as the archives and records management industries agree that microfilm remains relevant as a preservation media.” The rest of the comment then pointed to a prior blogpost I’d written on why microfilm remains important today. The headline itself mentioned “a major fight over microfilm” when in fact the discord is over client base and not…
Technical Support – The Third Slice of Crowley’s 360⁰ Solution
We recently wrote about one of our senior technicians, Steve Sheckels. The blog documented the highlights of his six years (and counting) with Crowley Support and his recollections upon visiting his 50th state while on the job. As a natural follow-up, this blog will shine some light on the capabilities of our entire technical support team. What many clients don’t know is that Crowley customer services don’t stop at scanning equipment and imaging services. We also offer technical support along…
Never Miss a Book with Interlibrary Loan
We received an inquiry the other day that asked, “What is Interlibrary Loan? How are your scanners compatible?” What first appeared to be a short answer became lengthy (and interesting) enough to be blogworthy. What is Interlibrary Loan (ILL)? According to the American Library Association, “Interlibrary loan (ILL) is the process by which a library requests material from, or supplies material to, another library [either via hard copy or digital file].” There are many different ILL applications including: Ariel®; Odyssey; ILLiad;…
Princeton’s Latin American Ephemera
Having celebrated Cinco de Mayo on Monday, we decided to raise our margaritas and toast Princeton’s Latin American Ephemera Collection. Crowley Imaging is currently under contract to scan and convert more than 100, 000 images from the collections, which are unparalleled in size and scope. As a result of this project, a vast portion that has so far remained uncatalogued, and therefore hidden from students and scholars, will soon become freely and widely available on the web. Short-lived…Forever The concept…
Crowley’s Traveling Technician
On March 26th, Steve Sheckels, a Crowley field service engineer, accomplished a pretty impressive milestone: he visited his 50th United State in the course of doing business. Steve’s a talented technician and instructor and has traveled the U.S. and beyond performing scanner and imaging equipment installations, training and – happily, far less frequently – repairs. On the heels of his personal Facebook post recognizing this achievement, we asked him to pull together some of the highlights of his travels. Here’s…
Throwback: 2003 Mekel Acquisition Transports Crowley Into Manufacturing
As anyone who’s ever taken an entry-level philosophy class can tell you, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Today we must agree to disagree with the great Aristotle. At The Crowley Company, we are greater because of our parts—Crowley has become a stronger, better-rounded organization thanks to the partnerships and acquisitions we’ve accumulated over our 30+ years in the imaging industry. Today we take the time to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of a major addition to…
Crowley Imaging Goes Hollywood with West Coast Imaging Facility
Well, technically we’re 34 miles west, but that’s still pretty darn close to Tinseltown. The fact is that with this week’s asset acquisition of Integrated Scanning of America (ISA), a respected California scanning bureau, Crowley Imaging now has an imaging facility to serve clients in the western United States. And that’s good news all around. What exactly is a service bureau? Those in the archive preservation and records management industries understand that a service bureau in our industry is descriptive…