Unlocking Historic Archives for Research and Teaching

This case study details the collaboration between AM, an academic publisher, and PLANET AI to enhance the accessibility of historical documents. AM specializes in digitized primary sources for the humanities and social sciences, but faced significant challenges with their historic collections, which were not machine-readable due to issues like handwritten manuscripts and complex layouts. Prior to this partnership, AM relied on a standard OCR engine, which necessitated manual intervention for indexing. This limitation hindered users' ability to search databases by keyword, creating operational bottlenecks. The case study outlines how AM implemented PLANET AI's IDA Recognition technology, specifically designed for challenging source material. This innovative solution allows for the automatic transcription of a large volume of documents daily, enabling keyword search capabilities and transforming the user experience. The integration of this technology has positioned AM as a leader in providing searchable databases of historical primary sources, significantly enhancing their product offerings.