Re: [Killietalk] Killietalk Digest, Vol 27, Issue 68

[Bill Martin <bill_martin at und_nodak.edu>]

>>Barry Cooper wrote:
>> > That suggestion adds a massive amount of work to the project. I had
>> > though about the issue but I feel the first task is to get edition 1

>> > produced. 
 Now I think we are getting somewhere.

If at first the JAKA pages were simply scanned and store as  jpg's or
tiff's,a CD or DVD could be made of the images.  While it wouldn't be
searchable for text or any thing else, you would have a record of the JAKA.
 Those who by it could be promised a free upgrade if the project ever goes
further.  

It  wouldn't take a lot of expertise to scan the pages and wouldn't require
expensive software.  Indeed if it weren't for copyright and other legal
issues,  it could probably be done without the AKA sanction,  just dividing
the work among people who wanted it done and had access to some old JAKA
issues.  The cost to produce the first CD would be nothing. and copies of
it could be sold and the money saved for making and up date.  The quality
of the pages would vary depending upon who scanned them and what equipment
they used, but some standards could be imposed such as scanning resolution,
numbers of colors  and degrees of compression if jpg was used.  

Once the pages were scanned,  it wouldn't be too difficult to do OCR on the
pages.  Indeed if I had a CD of the scanned issues I could run them through
OmniPage and convert them to digital text for my own personal use.  It
would take a while, but anyone could do it simply from jpg's of the
original pages..  If I had twenty friends who wanted them in digital form,
we could split the work up and maybe get it done.  If we never got it done,
 it would have only cost us our time  and at any rate we would have a CD
(probably a DVD would be better) and an understanding of what is involved.
The total cost to the AKA until this point would be the price of the blank
discs, wear and tear on a burner and shipping costs.  All of these could be
easily covered by only burning what was ordered and paid for.

Once the text was digitalized, and upgrade could be made with the digital
text in a folder separate from the scanned images.  The text would have no
pictures and would not be a facsimile of the original article, but still
you would have searchable text.  If anyone wanted to added footnotes,
nomenclature changes, grammatical corrections or anything else, he could
simply copy the files to his hard drive make any changes he wanted and be
busy for the rest of his life.  If he wanted he could add images for
cropping the original scans and then copying and pasting them.  He could
download images from the Internet or add some of his own pictures.  If he
wanted, he could put the disc with his other CD's forget about it, and go
do some water changes.  Who cares, no money has been spent and every one
has what he wants.  All of this can be down with very little effort and
only volunteer labor providing the volunteers had the pages and were
willing to take them apart and scan them.

If it ever got this far, then a project head could be appointed,  and the
pictures re-scanned  with an emphasis on quality control.  the pictures
could be inserted and the text arranged to look like the original.  Pop ups
could be added noting nomenclature changes and all other kinds of stuff.
This last phase would be time consuming and cost money, but it need not
ever be started until there was enough of the other versions sold as to pay
for it.

I doubt that the last phase would ever be reached, but who knows.  One
thing is for sure however.  Unless if digital copies of all future JAKA's
are made as they are published,  this same thing would have to be done
every ten years.

I'll bet there are enough people right here to get us to the last stage.

Bill Martin





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