Members Only on Mopac.org – Content?

[peggyrothschild]

Would like to kick around what we want to put on the Members Only area of mopac.org so the membership sees what their $35 gets them in addition to the magazines and calendar. This will be a good selling point for new members and those renewing.
– any diagrams we don’t have on DVD’s
– photos that have been scanned in
– some articles on mopac.org that (I at least) consider to be ‘value added’.

On the photo and diagrams we should have some sort of language in these areas that “this is for personal used only and the images are not to be used on other web sites, emails, PowerPoints or in paper form without permission of the MPHS”.

What else?

[luisflierl26]

I think anything that goes in this area we need to implement some controls – either by watermarking, only using thumbnails, or getting the software that is view only with no download.

As for content, we have over 2,000 drawings scanned – just need to go through them and find some good ones. Note – very few of the files have been organized, tagged, or named.

As for photos we have over 5,000 in digital format from various sources. Again, nothing has been sorted, named, or tagged.

[peggyrothschild]

David
Whatever we do I’d like to see this ‘user friendly’ for our membership. If a guy is a modeler he can’t use a thumbnail and would want to down load an image so he can print it off for reference.

As to a watermark how difficult is this and where do you recommend it be placed? Don’t forget the only way a guy has access to these photos or drawings is they have paid for their membership – they aren’t open to the public. I’m not naive enough to think someone wouldn’t share their userid and password but most folks are pretty honest.

[clemmie_doris12]

I guess I am a little confused. What exactly is it that we are trying to protect? If it is in the members-only section, why are we trying to make it unusable. Won’t access to this be part of the reason for joining? I suppose, if you want to go to the trouble, this might be reasonable for something that was available to the general public, but surely not the membership. There might be a few things that are so valuable that we don’t want to share them via the Internet. If that’s the case, we don’t expose them to misuse at all.

Maybe I was asleep, but my understanding at the last BOD meeting was to take some general steps (copyright notice, etc.) and then hope like heck the vast majority of people remained honest. Do we really want to spend time and effort with watermarks, etc.? If you do a good enough job to prevent a download, you have ruined the image anyway. I know that a lot of effort has gone into the archives and we don’t want to “give it away.” But, we don’t want to be like a library full of books that you can’t check out to read.

Help me to understand what the issues are.

[luisflierl26]

I’m all about free access, and I really don’t care too much about copyright laws. Some people are big on that stuff, but I’m not. Unfortunately ignorance can bite you in the ass.

If we make it freely available – it will be shared on other sites, social media, etc…. thus what is the point of the members only section if it will get shared anyway.

Second – we really don’t hold the rights to anything in our collection. I have no accession records that state we own the rights to anything when it was donated. Many of our items the rights are still owned by the railroad or the builder, or the original photographer.

Illinois Central HS is currently fighting issues regarding misuse of digitized files, and are limiting access.

MOT is currently unable to digitize and make available ACF drawings since technically the image still is owned by ACF, even though the drawings were donated years ago…. This relates to County lawers saying they can’t do it, not ACF.

There are currently legal issues regarding “The Image” of artifacts in museum collections. I understand there is an issue going on between NS and VMT over “The Image” of 611 and 1218 and MOT is now involved with the image of 2156. That relates to its use on t shirts, prints, posters, etc….

Many museum websites have online databases that are view only, you can look, zoom in, etc, but you can’t print or download from them. I think that is what we need.

Barriger just dumped all its photos online for free, and Nick thinks it has been a good thing – BUT they legally hold the rights to those photos and can do that if they want to. We don’t really hold the rights to anything in our collection.

I guess Vince’s advise was to just put “All Rights Reserved” on everything. The question is is do we go with that advise, or do we do more research.

[peggyrothschild]

When I donated my set of passenger car diagrams, etc it was my intent to make these available to the members. These are scrapped cars, no use to anyone but a few Mopac passenger cars buffs who enjoy looking at the diagrams or printing off a copy for modeling purposes. Same with our photos, there’s only 600 or so guys interested in the Mopac so why not make this information accessible online but not to the general public.

I do want to use it as a means to retain the members though. Once they see what is available hopefully the word will spread and we’ll get a few more members and retain members.

Most of what we have was being tossed out by the railroad. The drawings from Ray Curl you picked up from Jerry Howells widow were being tossed out.

I respect Vince’s legal advise on this and we use the ‘all rights Reserved’ notation.

[clemmie_doris12]

I have been affiliated with organizations similar to the MPHS, in the past, and it got real ugly when the lawyers became involved in a big showdown. I have no desire to go down that road again. Do we have any details concerning the ICHS debacle? I would be interested in knowing the details.

As for our own situation, how bad could it get? I doubt that UP would care about anything that we do. Worst case, they would tell us to stop. I don’t think that most other contributors will care about what we do with their donated material. I’m going to need some more specifics about possible consequences before I get too excited about any legal issues.

I realize that there is a potential for this stuff to “migrate” as we offer it over the Internet, but that is the risk you take. I noticed that part of the scan I created of the MP-CEI document is being passed around on Facebook. I purchased this document on eBay and I intend to retain it, but the sharing of it does not really bother me. What have I accomplished if I hoard it? It may attract some new members. If nothing else, it provided some entertainment for some known MPHS members. For me, the bottom line is this – we have so much of this stuff, no one on the planet will have the time to “steal” all of it.

My biggest concern is not to expose the Society nor the officers and managers to any legal liability. Any other concerns are inconsequential. So, where does that leave us? I’m open to a discussion with the BOD, if that is what it takes.

[luisflierl26]

I would like to see this stuff available as well. I just feel it is my responsibility to advise some of what I’ve learned while researching some of this stuff. Frankly having the content available online would simplify research requests.

UP has never bothered us about anything we have done before

[clemmie_doris12]

David, I appreciate your input. You are the archivist and I know that you have more knowledge and training than the rest of us. I value your opinion quite highly. Not to blow smoke, but you have taken our archives to a completely new level. Don’t get yourself burned out. We are going to need you for a long time.

As to the issue at hand, what can we offer now? I’m open to comment from everyone that has access to this forum. As soon as our IT consultant gets all the testing done, we will be in a position to take advantage of the member-only capability. Given some of the comments on this forum, I really believe that a discussion by the BOD is in order before we go too far. In the meantime, we need to add some content specifically for the membership. Are there any suggestions?

[luisflierl26]

What file format do the posts need to be in? jpeg or pdf?

What is available depends on how much work you want done before posting. Do you want items that are tagged with locations, types of equipment, etc?
We have well over 5000 digital pictures from various sources, but most are unsorted, uninventoried, unnamed, untagged.

We also have over 2000 drawings. Many stations, assorted equipment. Also lots of smaller structures, bridges, turntables, etc… Again nothing inventoried or tagged.

Microfilm scans? Again, needs lots of work.

We are approaching the 50,000 file mark in the digital archive, and that does not include the latest CD from Harper.

Another thing to consider is the lost opportunity cost of selling some of the drawings, and other technical items – many of the societies have downloads, reprints, and cds of these items available for sale.

[peggyrothschild]

I wonder if we could allow the non-members the ability to see a very low resolution image on their computer but if they wanted a higher image for downloading or printing we charge a fee.

I still am in the camp though that if you join the MPHS you get the members-only site for free and all the material in it. We’re going to need to raise the dues in a year or so to cover our costs and adding in the access to 10,000-50,000 images only adds to the reasons to join or continue to be a member.

As Kevin commented on I think this is a good discussion for the new and improved BOD.

[clemmie_doris12]

I see I’m a little behind with my replies.

The website can easily handle .jpg or .pdf type files. I suppose the choice for us would depend on any “limitations” we might want to try to impose. I like Charlie’s suggestion on offering a low-res photo for free, but charge a small fee for a hi-res image.

We should concentrate on some diagrams and photos that we know we have control of, or items that originated from the MP. Chances are very slim that UP would ever give us any grief on those.

To make it easy to use our current software, we should create categories to place our photos and/or diagrams in. We could add articles by locomotive model, freight car type, building type, etc. It would not be difficult to add photos to these articles. We are a long way from adding an index or similar feature.

All we need is a big carrot, for now. We can get fancy once the new BOD has had a chance to offer some guidance.

[peggyrothschild]

Agree, equipment diagrams like we have in drop box, modern MP diesels, freights cars anything on passenger cars.

[luisflierl26]

I think a lot of the depot and structure diagrams would be good too. We just need someone to start looking through the stuff and naming and selecting the good stuff.

[Author]

Posts