ONlin eData acress

[mopac]

It seems every year there is talk that “this is the year” members will able to access various data on the archives, photos, rosters etc, but it has never seems to come to pass. Are there any actual plans to implement the Members Database in the very near future?

Gene

[Bud Moss]

This is a good point Gene. Not being at the Austin meeting, I don’t know if it was addressed or not. I imagine that main problem is the BOD has a ton of work on their respective plates and the level of volunteerism is pretty low in the MPHS. As with a lot of organizations, lots of ideas and opinions but little desire to step up and take on a project.

Jerry Michels

[benjamintickell53]

Gene and Jerry, sorry that you two could not make Austin, it was a very enjoyable convention and a good chance to renew acquaintances with friends. I did not make it to Austin in time to observe the board of directors meeting, so will leave that part of your question for others to comment. However, I have been part of the digital archives team for a few years, and can offer my own thoughts from that perspective.

There are logistical IT-type challenges to putting material behind a “member only” wall, as well as questions about what material should be member only, what should be accessible to the general public (to hopefully encourage MPHS membership), what postings would be of interest or benefit to most members, etc. Should the member only section be simply password protected web pages, or should it be some arrangement to allow on-demand downloads, such as is offered by some of the more advanced rail historical society archives? My sense is that MPHS continues to overcome those challenges and hopefully this coming year will see the beginning of a member only section. In the meantime, material continues to become available for scanning, often with a definite timeline before it is to be returned to the owner. With a limited number of volunteers, a lot of effort is put into getting new source material scanned, getting the resulting digital files named so they can be retrieved, etc.

While wrestling with the details of how the “member only” section should be developed, it was the consensus of the digital team (and endorsed by the board) that a number of CDs should be produced using MPHS archive material that has been digitized. The CD option makes a large volume of archival material on a specialized topic available to members relatively quickly, thus hopefully demonstrating the benefit and value of the MPHS Archives. Recent CD topics include (1)Terminals 1928-1959, (2) Accidents 1931-1960, (3) Illinois Coal Mines, (4) Passenger car Diagrams-1963-1978, and (5) Passenger car diagrams – heavyweight cars & wood cars. (The latter just became available at Austin, and will soon be added to the on-line company store.) Each of these CDs required many hours of volunteer labor to properly orient, crop and edit hundreds of images in each CD for optimum viewing.

As Jerry noted, there are always more projects available than there are volunteers.

Bill Pollard

[luisflierl26]

Sorry you missed the Austin Convention.

There was a preview of the “members only section” during the meeting. It is still in Beta testing right now, and only limited content is currently posted for testing purposes. In theory it could go live anytime.

There are several issues leading to delays.

1) Lack of volunteer time – the few volunteers we have on the project are involved in multiple MPHS projects, not to mention involvement in their own personal lives, work, and family. We could really use some additional volunteers, especially those with access to and experience with software like Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat, and website experience.

2) Content – What content would members want, what content should be public access, what is copyright protected and shouldn’t be posted online (we have already had to remove some content because of requests from copyright owners).

3) Time involved in getting the material ready to post online. While we have over 100,000 items digitized, that is only the first step. Files need to be named, organized, cropped, edited, metatagged. Sometimes and hour or more of time is required just to get one file completed and uploaded. The uploading of some of the higher res files is also very time consuming. In the case of scans of slides and photos, we have many that were scanned, but no data regarding location or equipment type was added to the original file, going back and finding the original piece and adding that information is also time consuming.

In the end, we would prefer to put out a quality product and not something that needs to be redone a year or two after it is posted.

We have asked for additional volunteer support, anyone interested in helping with the digital work should contact Ted Ferkenhof. Most of the work can be done remotely from home computer if you have a high speed internet access. Knowledge with railroad locations and equipment would also help identify the photos.

[clemmie_doris12]

It appears that there were several answers in previous posts that were right on the money, so I will not list them for a second time. But, I would like to add a little additional detail. The biggest factor preventing implementation has been time. I think that many of us that are actively involved have discovered that the time factor carries more weight than we initially realized. In addition, 2018 has been an unusually “bad” year on a personal basis for many of our active volunteers. Health and family issues have hit several of these folks, including me. When it comes to these situations, you know what will take precedence.

The groundwork has been laid and I am sure that 2019 will be a better year for these endeavors. Some volunteers have come forward, but we can use more. If you have an interest, please, let us know.

[Author]

Posts