Expert digitisation consultants
Inhouse collection & delivery service
Accredited digitisation studio team
Highly accurate results
Instantaneous digital content searches
Capture data from any material type
Showcase your collections online
Improve access & discoverability 
Fully immersive virtual experiences
Index Cards
TownsWeb Archiving’s digitisation technicians are experts in heritage scanning and have a wealth of experience in index card scanning and fragile scanning.
In the case of index cards, our team can capture both the front and back of each card ensuring no information is lost. We can also use OCR to make the cards keyword searchable or, if handwritten, our specialist transcription service can pull key fields. This will assist in searching the collection once digitised.
Digitisation protects your material from loss or damage and makes it quickly accessible. We can create output formats in TIFF, JPEG (JPEG2000), PDF (PDFA), or any other industry-standard format you may require.
Find out how much your project could cost
Hear what our clients have to say about our digitisation services
TownsWeb Archiving have proved very able and extremely helpful in supporting us to bring a local heritage alive for local people. We would certainly recommend TownsWeb Archiving to other libraries, museums and archives.
Exhibition and Display Officer
We are delighted with the results. Without TownsWeb Archiving’s services we could not have completed the work in time and on budget. Their staff have been nothing but approachable, helpful and attentive and I can strongly recommend their services.
Head of Digital
TownsWeb offered us a complete end-to-end service, from scanning and transcription, to web design and content management software. Their work was completed quickly and to a high standard, and we are extremely pleased with the results.
Information & Archives Officer
Digitisation Frequently Asked Questions
We use bespoke, high-resolution flatbed scanners and a range of high-resolution cameras, offering non-contact capture of your index cards. Our equipment can capture single page or double-page spreads creating output formats in TIFF, JPEG (JPEG2000), PDF (PDFA) or any other industry-standard image format you may require. We can also create further surrogate files, such as OCR’d multi-page PDFs, MS Word and eBooks.
All files are captured by our highly trained digitisation technicians using overhead, daylight balanced, non-heat producing lighting, before undergoing a formal quality assurance checking procedure. The final step in the process is the delivery of your electronic files by hard drive.
As standard, TWA survey all material prior to any digitisation project being carried out to ensure that it can withstand the scanning process. If there is evidence of fragility, brittleness, and/or mould, or any other signs of damage to your index cards, then recommendations will be made for how to repair and stabilise the content appropriately.
There are many things that need to be taken into consideration when costing your digitisation project, such as:
- Fragility
- Scale of the collection
- Items needing to be removed from and returned to sleeves
- Any cleaning processes
- Whether items are contained in sleeves
Consequently, it’s impossible to give a definitive answer as to cost, but you can get a rough estimate using our digitisation quote calculator below.
Some organisations choose to digitise their content inhouse and we offer lots of information on how to get it right because, as an an organisation committed to safeguaring heritage material, the last thing we want to see is material and valuable information being lost through poor quality results. Saving on costs can have consequences further down the line so be sure to research what digitising inhouse will involve.
Calculate the cost of digitising your loose items collections
Simply input your specifications into the FREE digitisation quote calculator below, to get an estimate of how much your project might cost. The prices quoted are indicative for your material quantity and type but are subject to any additional costs such as file naming, folder naming and any post-processing requirements you may have.
If you don’t see your specific material listed it might be that your content is more suited to an informal chat.
Calculate your project costs
Enter your project details, material type and email using the form provided
Review your quote
Look out for your free no obligation quote, received straight to your inbox
Speak with our consultants
Book a discovery call if you have any questions or wish to proceed with your project
Loose Item Digitisation Quote Calculator
Important Note: We charge a standard £500 project set-up and management fee in addition to the cost of digitisation.
Capture the data within your Index Cards
Digitisation places your index cards in the perfect format to capture the valuable data contained within them, offering great potential for system integration and online access and discovery.
Capture the data within your collection with handwritten transcription, identifying any handwritten or cursive script within images and converting this to searchable and machine readable textual metadata through a process of scanning. Using bespoke transcription validation software we can guarantee highly accurate results, carrying out any preprocessing measures required and outputting to any format.
Learn more about Handwritten Transcription
Publish your Index Cards online
PastView is the perfect platform for publishing your index cards online, offering great potential for access and discovery. Manage and publish your collection with:
- Bespoke Search Filters: Creating numerous deep dive opportunities into your collections
- High Resolution Zoom: Revealing every minute detail through large scale manipulation
- Item Metadata: Assigning attributes to create an efficient collection structure
- Linked Relations: Making the connections between your items that will broaden search results