I'm surprised not to see any replies to this particular thread. It seems
to me to be a no-brainer (to use a nonce-word that I hate) that imaging
equipment for local wiki organizations in a position to make good use of it
to upload free content for the projects should be a high priority for
funding at whatever level.
In the next funding cycle, maybe someone should propose a pilot program of
allocating $10,000 and making ten $1,000 micro-grants for this purpose,
with the application process to include discussion of what or whose free
content would be made available to the projects if the equipment were
provided.
Newyorkbrad
On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 3:04 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:
A message I just sent in a wikimediauk-l thread about photographic
negative scanners, which I thought might be of general interest to
Wikimedia organisations.
tl;dr: an archival-quality negative scanner has potential to be a
white elephant* (a donation that is actually a liability), but could
be a useful thing that an organisation could use to make very good
friends with GLAMs and individuals.
- d.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant
-- Forwarded message --
From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com
Date: 15 February 2014 20:00
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] WMUK slide scanner
To: UK Wikimedia mailing list wikimediau...@lists.wikimedia.org
On 15 February 2014 19:52, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote:
On 15 February 2014 15:23, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:
On 15 February 2014 15:09, Andy Mabbett a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk
wrote:
Change of plan: Thank you, but I've been offered the use of one of
these:
http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/scanner/scoolscan_4000/
by a friend who lives locally.
Oh you lucky bugger. That's the level of archival-quality
piece of kit we could do with for WMUK. Though it would have to live
in the office.
A nikon product at the WMUK office? Is that wise:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canon_EOS_DSLR_family_(selection).jpg
:-)
Seriously, though: if you want archival quality, the way to go is a
CoolScan. Not only would we be able to scan negatives ourselves
(though it'd be tied to the office, rather than being a loanable
item), we'd be able to make very good friends indeed with GLAMs that
have random piles of unscanned negatives.
It'd be nice if someone with a few hundred quid bought a CoolScan,
scanned their collection, then donated the kit to WMUK when done with
it.
The way it usually goes is: someone buys a CoolScan on eBay, scans
their negative collection, sells it to the next person. WMUK would be
a suitable end point for such a chain.
The main catch is for it to be *someone else's* problem to make sure a
decade-old piece of kit is in usable condition not to be a white
elephant - donating something that turns into a liability is helpy
rather than helpful. CoolScan IV/4000 use FireWire, V/5000 on use USB
... software and supported OS is an interesting question as well ...
III/3000 and earlier do archival-quality scanning, but often have
weird hardware requirements. I think the I and II needed their own ISA
card. This is the sort of white elephant *not* to inflict on a small
charity.
If I had ~£500 to spare I would happily be that person. I'm not though :-)
I'll borrow the Ion (a rather less fragile piece of kit, so
borrowable), but if I had access to a CoolScan I'd happily do 'em
again.
- d.
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