Actually, you don't. But if I could still eat blintz, I would. Now
for a Mea Culpa... The long wait for the Chronicle DVD is largely my
fault. I wanted a certain look and features that would allow the disk
to operate on both Windows and Mac systems. Linux even. Plus I wanted
there to be a good balance between the graphics and text. And fast
search. And a good navigation scheme. And blintz...
All without
breaking the bank. Sure, all this could have been done with ease if
money was no object. Digitizing and prepping material for a DVD is
usually an exponential activity. The more features you add, the higher
the price climbs.
Toby wanted a production that would showcase
the association, do right by the years of work that went into the
journal and prove to the Board that we actually know what we are doing.
I somehow had these visions of the Board sending Toby on a long walk
off a short plank from his sailing vessel, somewhere out in the harbor
above the schools of ravening... well, I don't think there is much in
the way of ravening anything in that harbor. Seals? Coupla sand sharks?
Porgies?
Patty wanted the Amaray case and the DVD label to look
attractive, tell a story and also trumpet the Association. Jennifer
from the replication service wanted to do a good job by us as this was
the first imaging job of this kind that they had taken on. Imaging 70
year old journals is different from imaging a PR package for DVD
production.
There where the typical fits and starts. I tried to
run Acrobat Clearscan with the idea of producing nice small files with
full OCR. That was a pitiful trial. Seems Clearscan, while doing a nice
job of mapping out the characters also has a habit of blanking out
whatever it can't figure out. Not a good thing by any means. My thanks
to our team of volunteers who stepped forward to help out in processing
the 4 odd Gb's of images into PDF docs. Too bad Clearscan was a flop.
Then
there were the problems with image variability, even within an issue.
The Association couldn't seem to decide on a format, font, heading,
page size or even paper. There are so many changes that getting a set
of images that held together as a cohesive entity was a minor
challenge. Thanks to the power of my Mac Pro tower, running trials in
Graphic Converter, Photoshop Elements and Acrobat proved easy enough.
Set the parameters, hit the button and go do something else (unlike at
work... when I try this the Windows machines always crash on me).
If
anyone says digital imaging is a science... Bupkis! It's trial and
error, a certain part of luck and a whole lot of tickling the product
towards what you think it should be. And then hitting the button and
hoping the end result looks as it should look, at least as it is
supposed to look inside your head.
To make a long, rambling tale short, this is what you will get:
1.
1933 through 2008, arranged by volumes. The early years have a peculiar
arrangement of volumes and issues but the later years fall nicely into
the classic four issues per volume. Thankfully.
2. A pdf containing all of the special inserts offered by the Association over the years.
3.
A fully searchable DVD. You can search from within a volume or search
the entire DVD from the Home page. I installed an indexed catalog of
the entire disk so that searching 3.78 Gb's of files is a snap.
4. Copies of the latest indexes by Author, Subject and Book Reviews.
5.
Bookmarks galore.Each and every volume is bookmarked by issues, the
Inserts are bookmarked by the item title, the Indexes are bookmarked by
the alphabet.
6. Cross navigation. You can jump back to the Home page that contains the Full Disk Search as well as links to all the volumes.
7.
Copies of the most recent install files for Adobe Reader 8 and 9 for
Windows and Macintosh. Just drag the file to your desktop and install
away. Those file have become large in recent years. Rather than expect
people on dialups or other slow connections to wait through dinner
while the file downloads, we're giving you what you need.
8. BE
WARNED! The full disk features and many of the bookmark features will
only work with Adobe Reader 8 or 9. You might get by with Reader 7 but
you won't have a much fun.
9. And of course you get a disk
which should work on most any platform and for years. Vista or not. No
fancy HTML navigation gewgaws that will go out of fashion the next time
Microsoft decides to challenge the world with another operating system.
Just plain old dependable Acrobat Reader.
I have seen the check
disk and it is good. I'ld be inclined to sit down and actually read it
from the beginning, but honestly, I have to take a short break from
looking at those pages. Just for a while. I'm having dreams of fonts
and halftones and resolution...
The confluence of the Early
American Industries Association and the Digital Era is at hand. Take
part in the festivities or be very unhappy.
Till next, Gary
