CURRENT BOOK SCANNNING PROJECT.
We are currently working on a very large archive of old books that require HQ scanning to Archival TIFF images. Once processed, these images will be prepared to PDF with OCR (optical character recognition) for a complete searchable output.
The difficulty in this order, is the books are prepared
using a medium called Onion Skin Paper.
Whilst we are very confident in
preparing this type of medium, it is very important to be aware that there are
risks with scanning, given the sometimes-fragile nature of the
paper. Tears and rips can occur, so a very
gentle white glove approach is required.
Equally, with the nature of onion skin, the paper is very translucent which requires a sheet of white paper to be placed under each page before scanning. This then grants a very good HQ image that we can work with.
WHAT IS ONION SKIN PAPER?
It is also
relatively durable, given how lightweight it is, because it usually contains a
high percentage of cotton fibres, which make for
stronger paper.
BOOK BINDING
There are numerous practical applications for this paper, including airmail stationary, Books, Journals, Records, Bibles, and other situations where lightweight, strong paper is needed. Entire books can be printed on onion skin paper when they have a lot of material that would otherwise make them very unwieldy. When handling a large onion skin text, such as some versions of the Bible or the Oxford English Dictionary, readers should be aware that the larger pages are more subject to ripping if roughly handled than some other papers, so they should not be hasty, even when an etymological argument is vital.
Along with
other specialty papers, it is available from paper supply stores and companies
in varying sizes to meet differing needs.
The weight of
onion skin paper is very light; a stack of 500 sheets of bond size
weighs around 9 pounds (4 kilograms), depending on the manufacturer. Bond size
is 17 inches by 22 inches (43 by 56 centimetres), meaning that it is double the
size of a standard letter sized sheet.
The light
weight of onion skin paper makes it ideal for situations where large amounts of
records are being generated, but still need to be kept manageable. For this
reason, it is also often used to make duplicates, carbon copies,
and records of official correspondence.
While the
official version may be sent out on regular paper, the records are kept compact
on this specialty paper.
The finish of
onion skin paper is usually cockled, meaning that it was air dried while it was
being made. Cockled paper has a slightly wavy, hand-made feel to it, along with
a mildly dimpled finish. This property means that the paper often crackles
while it is being handled, as the sheets do not lie flat against each other. It
also prevents the sheets from sticking to each other or other surfaces, a
common problem with very light weight papers.
While onion
skin paper and tracing paper are
technically not the same thing, this paper can be used for art tracing. It can
also be used as an interleaving material in books with colour plates that have
the potential to be damaged.
Kind
regards
Cheryl
Oxford
Duplication Centre
Corporate,
Consumer and Heritage Digitisation
29
Banbury Road
Kidlington
Oxfordshire
OX5 1AQ
Tel:
01865 457000
Current
opening hours: Monday to Thursday 10-3pm by appointment only
www.oxfordduplicationcentre.com
Mary McMahon
Last Modified
Date: January 26, 2021
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