Resource Sharing for Groups release notes, January 2026

Benefits for your library

Article Exchange's Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology delivers enhanced user experiences with automatic searchability and accessibility features that require no additional work from library staff or patrons.

With OCR, articles are delivered in machine-readable text, allowing patrons to search within the document, copy text, or use screen readers—without any extra work for library staff. It’s one more way we’re helping library staff save time while improving the experience for patrons. 

Key benefits:

• Automatic PDF processing: Every PDF uploaded through Article Exchange is now automatically processed with OCR technology, converting document images into searchable and editable text. This process occurs seamlessly in the background, allowing you to start using your documents immediately.
• Multi-language support: Our OCR engine recognizes over 120 languages and scripts, ensuring accurate text recognition for international scholarship and materials in foreign languages. 
• Seamless workflow integration: OCR processing works automatically within your existing Article Exchange workflows—no configuration changes or additional steps required. Upload your documents as usual, and the system takes care of the rest.
• Improved accessibility: We've improved screen reader compatibility to ensure equitable access for users with visual impairments or reading disabilities. Your entire community can now more easily discover and use library materials

What changed with this release?

Before this release:

• You had to manually verify whether PDFs were searchable and accessible
• Documents were often unusable or inaccessible without additional processing steps
• No automatic OCR processing was available for uploaded PDFs

After this release:

• Article Exchange automatically applies OCR to all uploaded PDFs 
• Documents are immediately searchable and accessible upon receipt
• Simply select the document language (if needed), and the system handles everything else
• Patrons receive documents that are ready-to-use immediately

How it works

Article Exchange uses advanced open-source OCR technology to scan images in uploaded PDFs and convert them into searchable, accessible, machine-readable text. This process happens automatically in the background, ensuring all your materials are discovery-ready from the moment they're uploaded.

Automatic language detection:

The OCR system is designed to work intelligently with minimal input from users:

• Automatic language detection: When language information is included in the bibliographic data, Article Exchange automatically selects the appropriate language for OCR processing.
• Default settings: English is selected by default in the Article Exchange user interface.
• Manual selection: For documents in other languages, simply choose the correct language from the dropdown menu when uploading your PDF.

Manual language selection:

• PDF files only: OCR processing currently works with PDF documents (other file formats are not supported currently)

Additional considerations

• One language per document: Each PDF is processed using a single language setting. For documents containing multiple languages, select the primary language, and Article Exchange will apply OCR based on that selection.
• No duplicate processing: If a PDF has already been OCR'd, Article Exchange will automatically detect this and skip reprocessing to save time and system resources.

Supported languages 

• Article Exchange supports OCR conversion for over 120 languages and scripts. 

Supported languages

afr=Afrikaans

amh=Amharic

ara=Arabic

asm=Assamese

aze=Azerbaijani

aze_cyrl=Azerbaijani - Cyrilic

bel=Belarusian

ben=Bengali

bod=Tibetan

bos=Bosnian

bre=Breton

bul=Bulgarian

cat=Catalan; Valencian

ceb=Cebuano

ces=Czech

chi_sim=Chinese - Simplified

chi_tra=Chinese - Traditional

chr=Cherokee

cos=Corsican

cym=Welsh

dan=Danish

deu=German

deu_latf=German (Fraktur Latin)

dzo=Dzongkha

ell=Greek, Modern (1453-)

eng=English

enm=English, Middle (1100-1500)

epo=Esperanto

est=Estonian

eus=Basque

fao=Faroese

fas=Persian

fil=Filipino; Tagalog

fin=Finnish

fra=French

frm=French, Middle (ca.1400-1600)

fry=Western Frisian

gla=Scottish Gaelic

gle=Irish

glg=Galician

grc=Greek, Ancient (to 1453)

guj=Gujarati

hat=Haitian; Haitian Creole

heb=Hebrew

hin=Hindi

hrv=Croatian

hun=Hungarian

hye=Armenian

iku=Inuktitut

ind=Indonesian

isl=Icelandic

ita=Italian

ita_old=Italian - Old

jav=Javanese

jpn=Japanese

kan=Kannada

kat=Georgian

kat_old=Georgian - Old

kaz=Kazakh

khm=Central Khmer

kir=Kirghiz; Kyrgyz

kmr=Kurmanji (Kurdish - Latin Script)

kor=Korean

kor_vert=Korean (vertical)

lao=Lao

lat=Latin

lav=Latvian

lit=Lithuanian

ltz=Luxembourgish

mal=Malayalam

mar=Marathi

mkd=Macedonian

mlt=Maltese

mon=Mongolian

mri=Maori

msa=Malay

mya=Burmese

nep=Nepali

nld=Dutch; Flemish

nor=Norwegian

oci=Occitan (post 1500)

ori=Oriya

pan=Panjabi; Punjabi

pol=Polish

por=Portuguese

pus=Pushto; Pashto

que=Quechua

ron=Romanian; Moldavian; Moldovan

rus=Russian

san=Sanskrit

sin=Sinhala; Sinhalese

slk=Slovak

slv=Slovenian

snd=Sindhi

spa=Spanish; Castilian

spa_old=Spanish; Castilian - Old

sqi=Albanian

srp=Serbian

srp_latn=Serbian - Latin

sun=Sundanese

swa=Swahili

swe=Swedish

syr=Syriac

tam=Tamil

tat=Tatar

tel=Telugu

tgk=Tajik

tha=Thai

tir=Tigrinya

ton=Tonga

tur=Turkish

uig=Uighur; Uyghur

ukr=Ukrainian

urd=Urdu

uzb=Uzbek

uzb_cyrl=Uzbek - Cyrilic

vie=Vietnamese

yid=Yiddish

yor=Yoruba

zho=Chinese

What your library needs to do

No setup required! This feature works automatically with your existing Article Exchange configuration. Simply continue uploading PDFs as you normally would—OCR processing happens automatically in the background.

 Visit Article Exchange workflow, OCR Language for additional information and workflows.