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The following from Colleagues at DLPS which is offering OCR capacity at a discount rate and wanting to give DLF members priority in advance of a more general announcement along these lines. _____________________________ The University of Michigan's Digital Library Production Service has time available in their OCR production unit and is offering it to libraries at a below cost rate. This is a limited time offer! The terms are as follows: --We have capacity to handle ca. 400,000 pages per month between now and the end of March 2001. Depending on demand, no one institution can send more than 200,000 pages per month. --The cost per page is $.05, half of our normal recharge rate. To keep costs low, we will try to use ftp for delivery rather than burning and shipping CDs to customers. --We use Prime Recognition OCR software. Six different OCR engines "vote" to improve accuracy; accuracy rates for a "normal" page of late 19th-century page of English language text average around 99.8%. --For this offer, we cannot provide any special processing, like SGML generation. Individual text files and a report of OCR confidence values will be the deliverables. --To keep overhead low, terms will be laid out in a simple letter of agreement; for these purposes, we cannot engage in contractual commitments because they will inevitably involve negotiation. If you would like to take advantage of this offer, please send an expression of interest and a scope of work summary to me. Capacity will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. When we have determined whose work can be accomodated when, we will send detailed instructions on how and when to send work. -- Christie Stephenson Assistant Head Digital Library Production Service University of Michigan Library 300 B Hatcher North Ann Arbor, MI 48109 phone: 734-615-4061 fax: 734-647-6897