Precision and Preservation: The Power of FADGI Compliant Scanners

Government agencies are going paperless in 2024 — here’s how to ensure those digital files meet quality standards

In an era where paperwork is giving way to computer files, government agencies must be careful to maintain image quality. That is why agencies and experts collaborated to create the Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative (FADGI). FADGI helps ensure that important digital files are consistent across agencies.

There are different FADGI standards for still images and audio/visual recordings, but they share the same goal. They both aim to develop and maintain guidelines for long-term preservation. Government agencies and archivists who deal with still images will likely want to invest in a FADGI-compliant scanner.

What is FADGI and who does it affect?

The Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative was founded in 2007 “to articulate common sustainable practices and guidelines for digitized and born-digital historical, archival, and cultural content.” FADGI standards have been split into two groups: the Still Image Working Group and the Audio-Visual Working Group. Each of these groups has its own goals and deliverables, which can be found on the government’s FADGI website.

FADGI standards were designed with historical and cultural digital files in mind, and are enforced for any permanent record stored by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) or the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). In other words, FADGI primarily affects the government agencies tasked with digitizing historically significant works.

“There’s a lot more to FADGI-compliant scanning than just copying images,” said Vaughn Minger, National Sales Manager, East at PFU America, Inc. “Historical documents have additional details that tell us a lot about them. Every watermark, blemish, or artifact tells a story, and it’s important to tell that story. It’s not just about image quality, as modern scanners often remove these imperfections. It’s about preserving a piece of history, which means archiving these documents in their true forms.”

This is where the need for FADGI compliant scanners comes into play. In order to meet the minimum FADGI requirements, archivists working with digital documents or still images must use scanners that comply with a series of image parameters, among them pixel count and color.

How can scanners meet FADGI standards?

The full Still Image Working Group-issued guidelines for digitizing “cultural heritage materials” are extensive, spanning over a hundred pages of technical information. Among these instructions is the FADGI Star System, which assigns images a rating based on their quality. There are four levels in the Star System:

• One star: These images fall below FADGI standard due to poor quality. However, “one-star imaging is appropriate for applications where the intent is to provide a reference to locate the original or when there is no ability to image to a higher star level.” One-star ratings should be a starting point, not a final destination.
• Two stars: The “minimally acceptable rating for most professional digitization activity,” two-star ratings are reserved for times when “there is no reasonable expectation of having the capability to achieve three-star conformance” or the intended use of the digital image doesn’t require a higher rating.
• Three stars: Images with three-star ratings are professional quality and appropriate for most uses. Agencies wishing to comply with FADGI standards should aim for a minimum of three-star image quality.
• Four stars: Representing “the current state of the art in image capture,” a four-star rating is saved for the best possible imaging capabilities currently on the market. The Still Image Working Group recommends aiming for four-star quality for projects that are smaller in scope, “as it tends to be more achievable.”

Unless you plan to memorize hundreds of pages of evolving guidelines and technical specifications, your best bet for consistently hitting FADGI standards is to invest in equipment designed to meet them. This is determined by a number of features, such as sampling frequency, tonal response, white balance error, and color accuracy, just to name a few. Manufacturers producing FADGI compliant scanners must test extensively to ensure their images comply with the FADGI Star System. In our case, that means not only evaluating the performance at each device’s rated speed, but also having our engineers analyze each resulting image.

Ultimately, the implementation of FADGI standards is a critical step in the preservation of historically meaningful — and sometimes irreplaceable — digital files. By June 2024, federal agencies will be required to “manage all permanent records in an electronic format,” eliminating the use of analog records entirely. With such comprehensive guidelines in place to ensure precision and quality, Americans can rest assured that their history is well-preserved.

Our recommendation: FADGI-Compliant Ricoh fi Series Scanners

Those in the market for a FADGI-compliant scanner have no shortage of options. We take great pride in having spent the last 50+ years researching, designing, and developing some of the most advanced and powerful electronics in the world, including our professional-grade fi Series scanners.

Built to purpose for the most demanding document handling jobs, fi and SP scanners are capable of processing tens of thousands of pages per day at the highest levels of accuracy. Their intuitive integration capabilities with all existing work suites minimize time-to-value for businesses looking to invest in tools that will pay dividends for years to come.

Most importantly for those looking to meet FADGI standards, we have a number of scanners that are FADGI three-star compliant when calibrated appropriately. Choosing a scanner that’s already FADGI compliant makes it far easier to meet these guidelines, putting your agency ahead of the pack when it comes to digitization. Click here to learn more or shop the rest of our production scanner line.

Note: Information and external links are provided for your convenience and for educational purposes only, and shall not be construed, or relied upon, as legal advice. PFU America, Inc. makes no representations about the contents, features, or specifications on such third-party sites, software, and/or offerings (collectively “Third-Party Offerings”) and shall not be responsible for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of such Third-Party Offerings. Please consult with a licensed attorney regarding your specific situation as regulations may be subject to change.