Re: Voynich research needs

[reeds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jim Reeds)]

As part of this thread,

On Aug 22, 14:47, sjm wrote:
 
> I personally feel that the single most useful research tool we could have
> is a very high quality color photographic reproduction of the manuscript.
> We have discussed this matter to death in the past, even rather heatedly,
> but it never hurts to revisit it in summary.
...
> 
> At any rate, fresh eyes looking at the problem can never hurt.
> Welcome to the discussion, and good luck!

Yes.  Fresh eyes looking at good photocopies.  That's what's needed.

Over a year ago now, one of our members, Mark Perakh, announced
that he had a wealthy friend willing to bankroll production of a
high quality photocopy of the the VMS. After some initial
discussion, Mark chose me to look into just how we should go about
doing this. (In Mark's terms, to figure out to whom the donor should
send the check.) Which I have been doing ever after. I picked an
informal "board of advisors" of about 10 people most active in this
list and in the eary list discussion of how to spend the Perakh
donation (which really comes from Mark's generous friend).

I have sent copies almost all of my email discussion to the board
of advisors (which includes Mark) all along, keeping them abreast
of what's up on this project.  At many times I have received a lot
of help from the advisors, both in clarifying issues and in
explaining technicalities.  I think they are truely representitive
of the "Voynich research community" and that almost everyone will
be happy with the outcome of the project.

Now on to details.  There are two potential vendors I have talked
with.  One, the Beinecke Library itself, was almost prepared to
make a digital scan for us,  but after months of negotiating,
decided not to.  Their reason not to was apparently based entirely
on their feeling that their scanning equipment and staff were not
technically capable of doing the job as we wanted it done, for the
price we could pay.  They suggested we approach the other vendor
(whom I had contacted early on in the project but put on hold
while the Beinecke negotiations were underway).  This vendor
is more technically competent than the Beinecke photo department,
and has better equipment.  But they are also pricier, and we may
have to pass the hat around for a few extra thousand dollars to
pay for the job.

Jim Gillogly (this list founder, perhaps the country's top amateur
cryptanalyst, and more importantly, a member of my "board") and I
visited the offices of this vendor and had a 2 hour chat with the
boss. He will prepare a formal proposal (with variously priced
options which I will discuss with my advisors) in a few weeks and
if all goes well, scanning will commence this fall.

In general terms, we would get a high resolution color scan of
the whole VMS, with something like 70 megabytes of TIFF file per
page.  These master images  will be delivered on a set of CD roms.
I am pretty sure that Yale will also recieve a copy of the same
set.  We might also recieve a set of derived JPEG images.  What we'd
do with these master images is, I suppose: make a backup copy or
2; circulate them by sneaker net to the hard core researchers;
make derived JPEGs for easier distribution.  If Yale makes a
CD rom of JPEG derivatives we don't have to, but if they don't,
maybe we could.  At any rate, the present project is to accomplish
the scan, not to publish a CD.

As a final comment:  Yale's stance on permissions seems to have
taken a radical turn for the better and they seem to favor this
project.  It used to be popular to bad-mouth the Beinecke Library
in this forum, but I think its completely inappropriate now.




-- 
Jim Reeds, AT&T Labs - Research
Shannon Laboratory, Room C229, Building 103
180 Park Avenue, Florham Park, NJ 07932-0971, USA

reeds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, phone: +1 973 360 8414, fax: +1 973 360 8178