Re: Challenges page update...

[Mark Perakh <perakh@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim, thanks for your continuing effort. Remember that although I stay in shadow,
when time comes, I'll be there (unless it will take longer than either I or Al
are still alive). PS: My article on VMs (in Russian ) is scheduled to appear in
No 109 of Kontinent (No 108 already on sale, so probably 109 will appear rather
soon). Cheers, Mark

Jim Reeds wrote:

> On Aug 10, 13:09, Nick Pelling wrote:
>
> .....
> > IMO, the biggest challenge of all would seem to be in finding a way to
> > convince Yale to publish good quality digital watermarked colour images on
> > a CD-ROM.
> >
> > What happened when people have tried to open a dialogue with them about
> > this in the past? What particular issues were Yale concerned about?
>
> I'm afraid my answer is a bit wordy.
>
> I spent a lot of time on the phone talking with the Beinecke
> library about 18 months ago.  Of course they might have changed
> their policies since then, but at the time it seemed that the
> library's position was this:  they were perfectly willing to
> allow photography & publication of the VMS, with these three
> provisos:  (1) the MS could not be put at risk or damaged,
> (2) the publication could not embarass Yale, and (3), the
> customer could not own any way have exclusive rights to
> the images.
>
> In practice (1) boils down to: the work must be done by the
> Beinecke Library's Photography department, or by an  imaging
> firm with close contractual ties with the Beinecke Library,
> with technical expertise in handling rare books, and (2) they
> won't take pictures for neo Nazis.  Point (3) is the interesting
> one.  The images, if published in a coffee table book, could
> not be copyright by the publisher.  This undercuts the usual
> publisher's business model, but is otherwise tremendously helpful
> for scholars in general, including us.  (Once the photos have
> been taken, my understanding is that Yale doesn't really care
> how they are published, always assuming (2) is obeyed.)  In
> practical terms, I think this would be enforced by Yale retaining
> the negatives or copies of the digital master image, which they
> could copy or sell as they saw fit.
>
> The reason we didn't get copies made about 18 months ago is that
> their digital scanner, although once the world's best, had become
> woefully obsolete, and not capable of doing the job properly,
> with the resolution and quality conrols we wanted, at the price
> we could afford.  A side issue, relative to (1) above, is that
> their equipment used hot bright lights, which in fact would
> damage the MS to a certain extent.  So between shots the MS
> would have to be allowed a certain cooling-off time, making
> the whole operation slower and more labor intensive.
>
> The alternative plan, suggested by Yale, was to get the job done
> by a certain scanning firm, specialists in rare book & art object
> scanning, with which the library has a special relationship. Jim
> Gillogly and I visited the boss of this firm about a year ago, and
> I think he wants to do the project and I think Jim agrees with me
> that they are technically capable. Their price is a bit higher
> than Yale wanted, but not impossibly so. (There have been so many
> offers by list members to help pay for a proper scan that I have no
> doubt we can pay for the job.) The firm promised to make a formal
> cost estimate, at which point we would decide exactly what set of
> options to ask for, and then we would say "yes" and pass the hat
> around.
>
> So why hasn't the scan been done?  The firm did not want make
> an estimate until their Yale branch office was up and running.
> But this has been held up for the better part of a year by
> (I think) inertia on the real-estate agents' part: office space
> which had been promised the firm had been denied, or the equivalent.
> I have spoken with the boss of the firm fairly recently, and
> he is exploring an alternative location for the office.  I give
> him a nagging phone call every few months to see how things
> stand.
>
> So the bottom line summary is:  in principle, Yale has no
> objection to us making exactly the sort of scan we hope to have,
> but in practice, through no fault at all on the Beinecke's part,
> and for completely uninteresting & extraneous practical reasons
> the project has been delayed.
>
> I don't mention the name of the firm because no formal offer has
> yet been submitted, but I have kept a small bunch of VMS list
> members informed about all details of these tedious negotiations.
>
> I hope this helps.
>
> Jim
>
> --
> 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