Digital mountain: from granite archive to global access

Large-scale, multiterabyte digital libraries are becoming feasible due to decreasing costs of storage, CPU, and bandwidth. However, costs associated with preparing content for input into the library remain high due to the amount of human labor required. We describe the digital microfilm pipeline -sequence of image processing operations used to populate a large-scale digital library from a "mountain" of microfilm and reduce the human labor involved. Essential parts of the pipeline include algorithms for document zoning and labeling, consensus-based template creation, reversal of geometric transformations and just-in-time browsing, an interactive technique for progressive access of image content over a low-bandwidth medium. We also suggest more automated approaches to cropping, enhancement and data extraction.