| BIFAB |
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World knowledge is the central theme of the publications of the Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG publishing house. Since 1999 its editors have had access to an electronic archive for their internal documentation and research purposes. |
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| Country: |
Germany |
| Industry: |
Media |
| Application: |
Human Resources, Corporate-wide, Remote Locations and Mobile Users |
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Solution Requirements
For many years it had been the usual practice at BIFAB for every editor to "hoard" their own information and notes on a wide range of subjects - for example in a card index. However, from the point of view of editorial staff this situation was highly unsatisfactory in the long term, since they basically had no practical access to this comprehensive body of expert knowledge in diverse subject areas. And when it came to other searches, there were even greater problems: The company's contracts were kept in the management office as publisher's copies, and all the contracts for a year were bound into one volume. Staff who needed to view the contracts were constant visitors to the office - a time-consuming process which also badly affected office workflows, since searching for a contract involved at least two members of staff. |
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Solution
All the documents required for an operation are electronically archived and stored in a shared, central document pool. Staff from all departments have direct access to all the documents they need, and external employees and freelancers also have access to the archive over the Internet.
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Work Process
The data is stored in four separate archives (documentation, historical publishing bibliographies, readers' queries, and contracts). With the exception of documents that have to be scanned, editors can now store their own information in DocuWare, and carry out full-text searches. New information is entered by four staff trained to use DocuWare, and amounts to about 50 documents per week. Scanned contracts and other information are imported on two workstations running the original DW interface. All other staff access the archive over the Internet using a browser.
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The Benefits in Detail
The introduction of DocuWare has meant that previously inaccessible information stored in card indexes can now be viewed by everyone, making searching for information much easier and faster.
New publications can now be created much more quickly using the latest information, thereby fulfilling the exacting requirements of customers. Access to books has also been improved, since all the historical publishing bibliographies have been scanned and indexed. And the sometimes ancient volumes can remain undisturbed on their shelves. |
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Testimonial
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Sascha Höning,
Project Manager:
"Considering the complexity of the IT landscape in our publishing house, DocuWare is precisely the solution we were looking for. It has enabled us to achieve all the goals we had set ourselves. Today our staff can use DocuWare as a collective memory." |
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