I am curious to know if anyone has complete sets of microflim rolls of any Divison, Corp, ect, that have been converted - scanned - into PDFs. I know each roll costs $65.00 (currently from NARA), and some divisions - ect. have dozens of rolls each.
I would like to get a microfilm scanner (I guess I need to sell a kindey to do so though) to scan in selected divisions but just wonder if anyone is already doing this.
Unit Records on Microfilm... pdf's?
Moderator: Abicht
Unit Records on Microfilm... pdf's?
M.Abicht
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richard hedrick
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Hi Abicht,
I am currently doing LXXXI.A.K., I have completed rolls 1591-1594 and 1597; I have rolls 1595 and 1596 ordered and I should have them done by years end at which time I will get 1589 and 1590. Although the corps is covered in rolls 1584 to 1597 I do not intend on getting pre-Normandy records at this time.
Richard
I am currently doing LXXXI.A.K., I have completed rolls 1591-1594 and 1597; I have rolls 1595 and 1596 ordered and I should have them done by years end at which time I will get 1589 and 1590. Although the corps is covered in rolls 1584 to 1597 I do not intend on getting pre-Normandy records at this time.
Richard
Great, I assume this is for your own research? Also what sort of scanner are you using? I spoke with the folks at NARA and they are currently coming up with a plan to let folks scan the rolls on site ( so you wont have to wait the 6-9 weeks (my last roll took 13 weeks and I live 30 miles from NARA). They just want to be able to charge people a little to do this they said. Even though they are mandated by congress not to make money but to only cover their repo costs I wonder how charging folks to scan the rolls in the reference room covers costs? I guess we will see.
Back to this point, would you consider offering anyone copies of the pdf's at a price -(or Free!) sometime down the road?
Back to this point, would you consider offering anyone copies of the pdf's at a price -(or Free!) sometime down the road?
M.Abicht
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richard hedrick
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I am glad you brought up this question as I would like to get the communities input on how arrangements of this type should work. In principle I am happy to share what I have as I have sent information to people who have emailed me a request and I can hardly raise my standard of living selling it. The idea of making entire rolls widely available for download is different however as I don’t want to be the patsy subsidizing everyone else’s research.
What made me gain this perspective is that I put a message on my site a few months back trying to get donations to purchase and make available to everyone the KStN rolls that NARA has, I received no replies. (I perceived that KStN’s would have drawn the most support as they are very popular.) The donations would have covered the cost of the rolls only, the time it would have taken to digitize and the expense of hosting the files would have been all mine yet no one offered to participate. In cooperation with someone else we will have acquired by years end rolls T78R391 through R411 which covers the KStN rolls and other OKH organizational information. After having asked for a combined effort to make these rolls available and having received no reply it is unlikely that we would make them available for everyone to download. I know it’s complicated for many reasons and why should anyone trust me with donation money at all but there in is the dilemma, how do we make this beneficial for everyone without a few having to bare the brunt of the expense.
I have made contact with some people that are willing to share their digitized rolls and in return I share mine with them, I am willing to trade any single roll that I have for any other digitized roll that someone may have and for now this seems to be the only thing that works for me. I am sure however that I could also be persuaded to sell any digitized roll that I have for reasonable price of say $50.
What I would really like to see is a format that allowed me to share what I have and in return receive information that others have but I don’t know how that could be accomplished in an open forum (as apposed to individual trades) without getting back to the few supplying the many.
Abicht thanks for bringing up this topic and it would be great to hear others input on it.
Richard
Yes, the rolls I purchase are for my own research and I use a digital camera and a light box to digitize the microfilm. This is a very easy process that was taught to me by Olve Dybvig in a post on Axis History Forum (I think). I will find it and post the link.
What made me gain this perspective is that I put a message on my site a few months back trying to get donations to purchase and make available to everyone the KStN rolls that NARA has, I received no replies. (I perceived that KStN’s would have drawn the most support as they are very popular.) The donations would have covered the cost of the rolls only, the time it would have taken to digitize and the expense of hosting the files would have been all mine yet no one offered to participate. In cooperation with someone else we will have acquired by years end rolls T78R391 through R411 which covers the KStN rolls and other OKH organizational information. After having asked for a combined effort to make these rolls available and having received no reply it is unlikely that we would make them available for everyone to download. I know it’s complicated for many reasons and why should anyone trust me with donation money at all but there in is the dilemma, how do we make this beneficial for everyone without a few having to bare the brunt of the expense.
I have made contact with some people that are willing to share their digitized rolls and in return I share mine with them, I am willing to trade any single roll that I have for any other digitized roll that someone may have and for now this seems to be the only thing that works for me. I am sure however that I could also be persuaded to sell any digitized roll that I have for reasonable price of say $50.
What I would really like to see is a format that allowed me to share what I have and in return receive information that others have but I don’t know how that could be accomplished in an open forum (as apposed to individual trades) without getting back to the few supplying the many.
Abicht thanks for bringing up this topic and it would be great to hear others input on it.
Richard
Yes, the rolls I purchase are for my own research and I use a digital camera and a light box to digitize the microfilm. This is a very easy process that was taught to me by Olve Dybvig in a post on Axis History Forum (I think). I will find it and post the link.
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Jan-Hendrik
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![:[]](./images/smilies/icon_study.gif "Study"){kind=icon}
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richard hedrick
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As it turns out the post was here on Feldgrau but my recollection was poor and he did not go into detail in the post. At any rate here is the post:
http://www.feldgrau.net/phpBB2/viewtopi ... ht=#118327
Here are a few shots of my setup, you will notice in the second picture there are guides for the microfilm on the light box and a predetermined stopping point for the frame, you then shoot and pull to the next frame and shoot again and so on, never having to look at the LCD display. Later you come back and crop the images. Overall I am pleased with the result that i get.
The problem with a scanner as I see it is that, of course, it scans so it takes more time to acquire the image where with a digital camera the shot is taken instantly. I think this is important in reducing the overall time to digitize a roll.
If anyone is interested in trying this out feel free to send me an email if you want more detail as I can sure point out some pitfalls in the process.
With regards to format I do agree with Jan-Hendrik that there are better formats than PDF and multi-imaged tifs are great in this regard but for widespread distribution and for sake of space PDF is a workable alternative. The latest version of Acrobat will also let you select the quality level of the final PDF but with the better quality the files are naturally larger. I maintain high resolution jpg's of all the frames I shoot so at any time I can return to those images if higher resolution is required.
Richard
reg @ elccweb.com (remove spaces)
http://www.feldgrau.net/phpBB2/viewtopi ... ht=#118327
Here are a few shots of my setup, you will notice in the second picture there are guides for the microfilm on the light box and a predetermined stopping point for the frame, you then shoot and pull to the next frame and shoot again and so on, never having to look at the LCD display. Later you come back and crop the images. Overall I am pleased with the result that i get.
The problem with a scanner as I see it is that, of course, it scans so it takes more time to acquire the image where with a digital camera the shot is taken instantly. I think this is important in reducing the overall time to digitize a roll.
If anyone is interested in trying this out feel free to send me an email if you want more detail as I can sure point out some pitfalls in the process.
With regards to format I do agree with Jan-Hendrik that there are better formats than PDF and multi-imaged tifs are great in this regard but for widespread distribution and for sake of space PDF is a workable alternative. The latest version of Acrobat will also let you select the quality level of the final PDF but with the better quality the files are naturally larger. I maintain high resolution jpg's of all the frames I shoot so at any time I can return to those images if higher resolution is required.
Richard
reg @ elccweb.com (remove spaces)