Saztec, North Crescent Road 13 29
June 2003
Saztec
used this building from November 1986 until it went into liquidation in 2001.
From 1927 to 1988, a wider site was occupied by the Shell Oil Refinery.
Saztec Europe Limited was the European division of the American based company,
Saztec International Incorporated which specialised in the retroconversion of
library catalogues into computer format so that they could be easily accessed
from anywhere it the world. Saztec was a leader in this field and handled work
from the General Register Office for Scotland, the British Library, the Bibliotheque
National in France, the German National Library Deutsche Bibliothek and other
national libraries, such as those of Sweden and Iceland. They also converted
information, for example, law newspapers for other British companies. Coding
staff had to gain a basic knowledge of different languages in order to put the
MARC (machine readable cataloging) library codes on to the information which
was then sent to the keying department where copy typists transferred it to
computer databases in a variety of languages. The information was then verified
by rekeying and proof-read before being sent to customers. Saztec demanded extremely
high accuracy from its workforce to produce an excellent product for its customers.
Wages were dependent on speed and accuracy.
The building was demolished between 22 June and 5 July 2003.