________ ________ ________
2017-07-10 / \/ \/ / \
/ __/ /_ _/
Just a few thoughts and notes on / _/ / /
Otarchive, to keep the phlog rolling. \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
/ \/ \/ / \
Actually, before that a meta post; I'm / _/ /_ _/
thinking about changing the structure of the /- / _/ /
phlog files to gophermaps in subdirectories \________/\________/\___/____/
for each entry, it'd be clumsy but would
give me a way to hyperlink references and add reference files to a post.
Thoughts? Too hard? In opposition to the Gopher simplicity? Answers on the
back of a postcard to...
Also I still can't get extended ASCII characters to work consistently but I
think that's just the way things are and not something I'm doing.
Anyway, the Otarchive. I use Salesforce to track the library because it's
what I do professionally so keeps me sharp and gives me a focussed playground
to test ideas with a purpose. It's one thing to have a sandbox and be able to
do whatever you like but it's another to have a sandbox and be able to do
whatever you like with a specific end goal, I suppose. I've migrated the data
from our old org to a new one because more space and more widgets and it's got
me re-thinking some decisions I'd made previously, such as separating out
physical items and digital items and all this weird magic happening with dates
and titles. It was super rad, don't get me wrong, but it was also pretty
unnecessary. In re-working the library's progress it's really bubbled to the
surface how much work I need to do on the project rather than around the
project. I spend too much time documenting the documents and not enough time
actually scanning what I've got and uploading what I've scanned. Maybe I can
work into the new Salesforce stuff some kind of task structure to prod me
incessantly to scan junk. I think I struggle a bit with the scanning side of
things because it's such a chore right now without my own scanner.
Which is the second thought I've been bouncing around in my head; maybe
starting a Patreon or similar to fund the project. This is pretty unlikely
because crowd funding and I go together like oil and water but this is a
costly endeavor and I could use the help. But the burr in it for me is, ok
patrons fund me and I get a nice scanner so I don't need to use the ones at
work and I have a nice project-dedicated account to purchase zines as they pop
up but then I get the zines, right, I scan them and upload them, then who owns
them? Currently, at the end of the day the project and it's library is mine,
if I get desperate and have to sell it or if I lose interest and pass it on to
the State Library no one can tell me otherwise, but if it's funded by other
people it'll never be fully mine and the project will stop being my project
FOR other people, it'll be my responsibility TO other people. Right? I don't
know.
Like I said, though, it's something I've been twisting around but pretty
unlikely to follow through with. Fuck it. That kind of "support my hobby"
crowdfunding always leaves a sour taste in my mouth, the only donations I want
is material to grow the library and I don't think Patreon accepts old
convention fliers.
The Patreon stuff lead me to the last thought, it was something that came
up while I was rolling around ideas for "rewards". The obvious stuff was
getting a look at this or that before it's thrown on the Internet Archive,
having a say in what gets scanned as a priority, etc. Maybe at a higher tier
you could get purchase rights to stuff from the library, in case there was a
zine or whatever you wanted that we had, after it'd been scanned you could
offer to buy it. That idea gave me pause, wondering about the project's
endgame. If the goal is to digitise and distribute this stuff to preserve it
for everyone then does the project library need that physical copy? On-selling
items after they're scanned seems like a way to keep it rolling along,
reducing the overall cost.
I do like having them around, though.
The reward that I thought was most interesting though was a quarterly zine
of my own, a zine for the project backers. A regular update on what the
project is doing, what's new in the library and what's been scanned and what's
up next, as well as a couple of highlight articles republished from the
project zines themselves. Patreon or no this seems like it'd be something fun
to do just for the sake of it.
EOF