A discussion on the need to digitize past issues of AOS and OD magazines

[kentuckiense]

As a grad student, I spend a considerable amount of time browsing past issues of scientific journals relevant to my research. These days, it's an absolute necessity for scientific journals to have digitized articles coupled with a digital subscription service.

While the AOS and OD magazines aren't technically scientific journals, they clearly offer plenty of technical and historical information. Unfortunately, for relative newcomers like me, old issues are pretty much inaccessible. Sure, I could try to buy up sets of back issues, but it can be expensive and difficult. I've had friends scan old articles for me, but again, I don't like consuming too much of their time and I'm not quite sure which side of the law such a practice is on.

Case in point. I would LOVE to be able to read all of Jack Fowlie's old orchid adventure articles from Orchid Digest, but I have no idea which articles appeared in what issues. And, obviously, once I figure out what issues to get, I actually have to find them for sale.

So, I'd like some input into the pros and cons of AOS and/or OD digitizing back issues and making them available to subscribers (for an additional fee?). I subscribe to neither, and this is one of the reasons holding me back. If I had electronic access to back issues, I would pay double the subscription fee for both.

Obviously, such a project would take time and money, the amount of which could vary depending on the how the job is approached. At the most basic level, volunteers or an intern could scan articles. Increasing the complexity (but not by much) would be to add a search/sorting function.

Anyway, this is just a little idea I had. I don't want all of that valuable orchid knowledge being lost once those old issues are lost, deteriorate, etc. Thoughts?

 

[SlipperKing]

Great idea! When can you start?

 

[Ray]

Isn't this an ongoing effort at the AOS?

One of the first thing that comes to mind is just how articles would be digitized? Are we talkin scan pages and save images, or the creation of an electronic document, making it searchable?

The first is easier and less costly, but of little value, unless someone compiled scads of keywords for a cross reference.

 

[NYEric]

If you scan, Adobe 9 Writer has searchable function.

 

[tim]

try this for a list of Fowlie's articles...
http://www.orchiddigest.com/img/Contents_by_Author.pdf

i agree the need to digitize is great, but volunteers might be stretched pretty thin already. if you feel like it's that important offer up your time. the reason that AQ+ has so many digitized slides is because someone (a good friend of mine) saw the need and did it. he got an aos silver medal for his work...

 

[kentuckiense]

To clarify, I'm not suggesting that this would be a simple or easy undertaking. And, of course, I understand the dearth of volunteers. I'm not trying to demand anything from the AOS, like I see many others do. However, I feel like such a pursuit would be in the AOS's best interests as it would help solidify and expend its relevancy in the orchid world.

Such a project does interest me greatly, and if I were independently wealthy or lived near Boca Raton, I would gladly volunteer. However, as it stands now, I'm a graduate student hundreds of miles away. It should go without saying that I have a surplus of neither time nor money.

As for the technical details, I'm not really familiar. However, as Eric mentions, it appears that some software has text recognition abilities. At the most basic level, issues/articles could be scanned and new technology could be applied to those documents at a later date.

Another idea would be to sell back volumes digitized on CD. I'd gladly pay for those, too.

 

[tim]

maybe you could communicate a need with an institution rich in volunteers...for example, the US National Arboretum in DC (2 hours from you) has the complete set of AOS Bulletins and lots of volunteers...probably also a scanner. scanned files could probably be decoded later as long as the scanned hi-res files existed somewhere.

i felt the same way as you for a long time, then i just got all the old magazines myself so there's no need for scanned files. there are a number of older judges in the DC area who might give or loan you large sets of AOS bulletin or ODC....again they meet at the national arboretum so you might could kill two birds with one stone....

 

[Leo Schordje]

Getting the AOS to follow through on this has been futile so far. Ask Harvey Berniese (I may have mis-spelled his name). Harvey was involved with Michigan State University library digital project. He tried to help the AOS go digital and the end result was frustration for everybody involved.

As to OD, they are an all volunteer organization, so recruiting volunteers to do this is the only way it can happen.

 

[kentuckiense]

Haha well well. I had no idea this was an ongoing struggle with the AOS.

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

Interesting topic that makes you wonder about all that archived paper at universities, etc. In the old days it was micoflim - how hard could it be to scan the stuff with even an average quality scanner? A weekend with a few friends and a case or beer would be all it would take. Sounds like more politics is gunking up the process...

 

[Leo Schordje]

Interesting topic that makes you wonder about all that archived paper at universities, etc. In the old days it was micoflim - how hard could it be to scan the stuff with even an average quality scanner? A weekend with a few friends and a case or beer would be all it would take. Sounds like more politics is gunking up the process...

Scanning a few issues is no big deal, but consider this;

Every issue of the AOS Bulletins was a minimum of 50 pages. So 1927 to 2009is 82 years. At 12 issues per year, scanning 2 pages at a time you are looking at a project requiring 24,600 pages to be scanned.

At big project when looked at in total.

Now if you could distribute the effort between one or two hundred people, each person doing a years worth or so. If someone has time, they might try to tackle organizing this. I would be willing to do one years worth in the 1980's range. but I won't start until I know a co-ordinator has taken up this project.

Any volunteers for the co-ordinator of this project?

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

Every issue of the AOS Bulletins was a minimum of 50 pages. So 1927 to 2009is 82 years. At 12 issues per year, scanning 2 pages at a time you are looking at a project requiring 24,600 pages to be scanned.

True, but a lot of those pages are ads, and who really needs those? Just scan the front and back covers, table of contents, and articles. My dad had 17 years of them in the closet - around 1963-1980 - our private library.

Any volunteers for the co-ordinator of this project?

Like I said, gimme a case of beer (and lots of pizza, ruben sandwiches, and other yummy, greasy, American food I can't get over here), and a few crazy compatriots and I'll scan till I'm dead. Shouldn't take but a few weekends.

 

[Leo Schordje]

Like I said, gimme a case of beer (and lots of pizza, ruben sandwiches, and other yummy, greasy, American food I can't get over here), and a few crazy compatriots and I'll scan till I'm dead. Shouldn't take but a few weekends.

Sounds like a good excuse for a little road trip, 'cept that pond they call the Pacific, between Chicago and Kyushu. I'd even bring some real Chicago style pizza, or Italian Beef from Al's Beef on Taylor Street.

 

[kentuckiense]

For what it's worth, I could do some scanning if someone sent me a few volumes. I think my issues from my brief membership stint in the mid 1990s were thrown out long ago.

However, I was really hoping for the AOS to somehow get involved with this:
1. I think it could greatly benefit them both monetarily and as a society.
2. I hate to be a pessimist, but I doubt we'd be on the right side of the law if we just did it on our own and distributed it. If the AOS/OD wanted, they'd probably have a legitimate lawsuit. The solution to this would be to keep the copies among a relatively small group of people, but I feels like that would totally defeat the point of the project: to make decades of invaluable information available to the current and future generations of orchid growers.

It'd be nice to be able to work with the AOS on this, but as Leo said, it's been tried. I'm willing to be a point-man with them on this, but I don't really know if they'd really take a 23 year old non-member too seriously.

 

[edkravcik]

I actually wrote to the AOS with this exact idea about 5 years ago when a friend told me that National Geographic had done the same with their past issues.

I have been an AOS member for over 25 years so I was hoping they would listen

I was politely thanked but the idea essentially was dismissed. A real shame as they could earn much needed income--just this week I saw they were listing many of their orchid books on EBAY to earn cash.

 

[SlipperKing]

I actually wrote to the AOS with this exact idea about 5 years ago when a friend told me that National Geographic had done the same with their past issues.

I have been an AOS member for over 25 years so I was hoping they would listen

I was politely thanked but the idea essentially was dismissed. A real shame as they could earn much needed income--just this week I saw they were listing many of their orchid books on EBAY to earn cash.

Interesting sadness

 

[Clark]

I've always thrown these out, just like any other monthly.