While Beckett Rankine may not be able to run a paperless office, we did decide three years ago that all our archives would be digital. This was not too much of a challenge for project material produced by us since that has mostly been stored in digital format since 1986. The principal task has been the scanning of pre 1986 material and material produced by other organizations.
Over the years, we have amassed a huge amount of marine engineering project records, photographs and other paper based documents, which until now have been stored as hard copy in our central London offices. Eventually we ran out of shelf space. So armed with half a dozen scanners that can handle everything up to A0 paper our archive team has set about scanning and converting decades of paper into digital images.
Scanning is only half the task and our IT department had to develop a bespoke Document Management System which is tied into our Wikimedia based intranet system. As a result of this work we now have a chronological digital record amounting to over 500GB of legacy data maintained within a fully searchable system that provides worldwide access to authorized users.
During the process we have come across many interesting historical finds, these include original papers relating to Mulberry Harbour, pre-war surveys and reports, early 20th century project records and academic papers written by past directors including Allan Beckett and Sir Bruce White.
The oldest document in our archive is a meticulous report by the eminent Sir John Wolfe Barry. Written in 1888, the year the firm was founded, this leather bound report examines the causes of the failure of the Empress Dock North Wall in Southampton. The report is hand written and signed by Sir John providing a fascinating insight into how engineering reports were produced before the days of the typewriter. Needless to say priceless documents such as this will not be disposed of after scanning so we will still need some of that shelf space. Click here or on the image of the report to download a copy.
Our scanning project is due for completion in mid-2014 and over the coming months we will be sharing some of the more interesting items here on this website and, for World War 2 material, on our Mulberry Harbour website.
