THE GREEN SHEET MAGAZINE

With editorial staff in the UK, USA, Australia and Spain The Green Sheet will keep you up to date with all of the latest international developments in Document Scanning, Web Hosting of documents, The Bureau Industry, Document/Box Storage, Micrographics, Records Management, Document Archiving, Digital Imaging, Legislation affecting the technology and all other aspects of Information Management.  It is your number one source for the latest news of acquisitions, product launches, technological advances, exhibit round-ups, and industry feedback.

The Magazine has now been integrated with this website to add comprehensive coverage of the products and services available for information management.  For five years this web directory has been the prime reference source for details of suppliers of hardware, software, consumables and every kind of service facility including document scanning and microfilming bureaux, companies specialising in repair and maintenance, off site storage facilities, independent consultants and companies specialising in the integration of software.

The Green Sheet is a full colour bi-monthly magazine sent out to over 60 countries worldwide with a predominant readership in the UK and USA. Its aim is to be the number one source of information for all matters related to document imaging, information management and archiving with a strong practical emphasis. Editorial content is provided by four editors from the UK, USA, Australia and Spain -  Mitch Badler, Gerald Baker, Tim Nixon and Laurie Varendorff. All are well known and respected for their contributions to the technology. Their aim is to present vital information at the user level, avoiding academic jargon and employing their many years of personal experience to convey details accurately and comprehensively.

THE GREEN SHEET WEB DIRECTORY

This web directory was launched in February 2000 by G G Baker & Associates who will continue to be responsible for its editorial content. In February 2005 the site was acquired by The Green Sheet who will be investing in its future technical development, increasing its promotion to potential users and handling all matters relating to advertising. G G Baker will concentrate on the maintenance and improvement of its editorial content, including its index structure and its enlargement to an international reference source. Full details of how to submit free entries or advertise on the site will be found under Contact Us.

ABOUT G G BAKER & ASSOCIATES

G G Baker & Associates was formed in 1968 to provide impartial advice to those planning information management systems and to assist companies in difficulty with existing projects. Contracts have since been undertaken for many hundreds of major users throughout the world.

Having no commercial link with any supplier, Gerald Baker has been in considerable demand as a lecturer and as an independent Chairman for national and international bodies. For many years he headed the Microfilm Association of Great Britain and the British Standards Institution committees responsible for micrographic standards, he also led the UK delegation to meetings of the International Standards Organisation. During that time he was responsible for bringing many British Standards into line with their international counterparts. He initiated and supervised work on the standards for COM film formats, reader image quality and, most importantly, the first advisory standard on the legal admissibility of microforms (which many experts at the time considered to be an impossible task). It was published in 1984, shortly before he left the UK to live in semi-retirement on the island of Mallorca. This pioneering advisory standard provided the foundation for the current advisory standards relating to the legality of scanned documents.

The consultancy soon found that it could not handle the demand for unbiased information on an individual basis, so a publishing division was formed to make its knowledge and experience widely available through inexpensive books. The first title was A Guide to COM which first appeared in 1971 when the technology was still in its infancy. This became a standard reference work and over 6000 copies were sold before it was eventually merged into the Micrographics Year Book.

A similar pattern followed with the next publication, A Guide to Microfilm Readers & Reader Printers which ran to six editions before its content, mostly comprising illustrated data sheets, was also merged into the Micrographics Year Book. A third guide, to Microfilm Production Equipment, completed the series and ran to four editions until it too was incorporated into the Micrographics Year Book.

A bi-monthly magazine Microfilm & Video Systems was launched in 1982 to cover micrographics and the then emerging technology of electronic document management. It was an immediate success but it was sold in 1986 when all editorial activity was moved to Spain. The title reflected the fact that many of the early attempts to record documents electronically were based on video tape technology, because optical discs were still under development at the time.

From 1991 to 1996 G G Baker & Associates published the Document Image Processing Year Book which was  the first UK reference work covering suppliers of electronic document management products and services. By 1996 many other publishers had entered the field and several of their offerings were blatantly based on the DIP Year Book. There was so much pointless duplication of effort that G G Baker & Associates withdrew from the overcrowded market in order to concentrate on the neglected field of micrographics.

For many years the Consultancy arranged exhibitions and seminars and stocked standards and publications from other independent sources such as the National Microfilm Association (now AIIM International) in the USA. This ceased in 1986 when Mr Baker left the UK, taking advantage of modern communication techniques to edit the Micrographics Year Book from offices overlooking the coast of Majorca, but all sales and marketing operations remained in the UK.

An experimental web site, combining a tutorial and a limited amount of commercial information relating to UK suppliers of micrographic goods and services was launched in February 2000.  The success of the pilot scheme encouraged the development of  this site which contains most of the content of the Micrographics Year Book plus a vast quantity of new material relating to electronic document management.

A general interest publishing programme is run in parallel with the company’s technical reference works. The first title issued was Enjoying Majorca by Pamela Legge, and the most recent is The Expatriate Siamese by the same author. These hard-back books are available at substantial discounts to visitors to this site and they make excellent gifts. For descriptions, reviews, extracts and order details click here.