Overview

RapidILL includes an automated Optical Character Recognition (OCR) service. OCR converts text from scanned documents, images, or PDFs into machine-readable and editable digital text. This makes documents searchable, supports easy editing and data extraction, and improves accessibility. 

Workflow

When a lender uploads or delivers a file to RapidILL, the system first checks whether the file is machine-readable:

• If it is, the file is delivered to the borrowing library as usual
• If it is not, RapidILL automatically runs it through the OCR process before final delivery.

This service is enabled for all RapidILL users, regardless of the system they use to manage their RapidILL requests.

Additional Information

The automated OCR service uses Microsoft’s Document Intelligence Read model to automatically detect the languages in a document’s text. The model currently supports more than 164 languages. 

OCR is applied to the following file types: PDF, TIFF, TIF, HTM, and HTML. Files received from lenders in non-PDF formats are first converted to PDF using the same process RapidX uses for all incoming files, then sent through OCR processing.

If the automated OCR service cannot produce a machine-readable file, the note ‘OCR processing for this file could not be completed’ is added to the following:

• The automatically generated RapidX cover page
• The RapidILL Status Check page

If Convert to Image PDF is enabled for the borrower (this setting is uncommon), the OCR process is not applied to any files.

Note for ILLiad users:

The RapidILL system supports direct Odyssey delivery between lenders and borrowers when both use ILLiad. In these cases, files may bypass RapidX and, therefore, are not processed by the automated OCR service. If you use ILLiad and would like all filled RapidILL borrowing requests to go through the automated OCR service, please contact our support team. They can configure your settings so that lenders deliver files to the Rapid Odyssey address, allowing them to pass through the OCR process before final delivery.