The Internet Archive Chooses LuraTech's LuraWave(R) JP2 and LuraDocument(R) PDF Compressor for Groundbreaking Open Library Project.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- JPEG2000/Part 1 Solution Integrated Into Core Workflow and Selected as the Digital Master Solution; JPEG2000/Part 6-Style PDFs Selected as Key Distribution Access Format

LuraTech, leading provider of imaging and document software technologies for the library and archiving market, today announced that the Internet Archive has chosen the LuraTech LuraWave(R) JP2 and LuraDocument(R) PDF Compressor for all of their book digitization projects. The first major implementation will be the Open Library project supported by the Open Content Alliance (OCA), an alliance of global cultural, technology, nonprofit, and governmental organizations including Microsoft, Yahoo!, and the University of California system. The LuraWave JP2 implementation of JPEG2000 has been integrated into the Internet Archive's core workflow, allowing the electronic capture and creation of digital masters of all scanned materials. LuraDocument PDF Compressor has also been selected as the core compression standard and OCR engine for the books distributed in the PDF format at the Internet Archive. The LuraWave and LuraDocument products from LuraTech will allow the Internet Archive and the OCA to create document archives with extremely small file size but extremely high quality.

"Acceptance of the JPEG2000 open standard by the Internet Archive, the touchstone for innovation in the archiving world, is a key step forward for libraries and archives around the globe," said Mark E. McKinney, Vice President of sales and marketing for LuraTech. "They are creating highly accessible files through the combination of LuraTech's MRC compression techniques and Adobe's ubiquitous PDF Viewer, providing the world digitized books that are both small in file size, high in image quality and readable by any device."

By implementing the JPEG2000 standard, the Internet Archive will be able to maintain well-compressed, "lossless" versions of their books that are guaranteed to be viewable by future generations. Moreover, the JPEG2000 and PDF files will contain rich Meta data, including searchable text generated by the integrated OCR engine.

"The OCA project is very important for the free distribution of information, literature, and entertainment worldwide," said Carsten Heierman, President and CEO of LuraTech. "We are proud to be an integral part of this groundbreaking project. But we are equally proud to be selected as a primary vendor to deliver affordable, professional implementation of the open ISO standard formats, like JPEG2000."

Headed up by the Internet Archive, the OCA will create an archive of digitized text and multimedia content. The material will include cultural, historical and technological digitized print and multimedia content from libraries, archives and publishers. Content will be hosted in a single, permanent repository and complete works will be searchable and downloadable for free by anyone, and the initial digitized content will be made available to all search engines by the end of 2005.

The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit founded to build an "Internet library," with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located in the Presidio of San Francisco, the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages in their collections.

http://www.archive.org

About LuraTech

LuraTech is a leading provider of software technology for images and documents as well as JPEG2000 implementations. The company delivers easy-to-integrate, open-standard products, coupled with enterprise-class support for public and private sector organizations. Leveraging JPEG2000, the LuraWave JP2 and LuraDocument JPM products make the compression of color images faster, more feature-rich and affordable than ever before.

Organizations around the world have adopted LuraTech products, including Avision, Canon, Corel Corporation, Duerr Dental, EADS, European Space Agency, FujiFilm, IMAGE PRO, IXOS SOFTWARE, Kodak Medical, Minol, NYPD, ReproZentrum Rosenberger, Scanpoint and VITRONIC. LuraTech, founded in 1995, is headquartered in Germany with offices throughout Europe and the U.S.

For more information, visit the LuraTech website at http://www.luratech.com.