Well, If you want really cheap, reasonably effective labor to digitize the media, I would suggest contacting a local high school tech teacher.
In my experience, they are always looking for "real world" projects to keep the kids interested. If you added to your DB a field for "Digitized By:", I bet you could get a lot of scanning done (including OCR, touchup and db entry) by having a class help. I would suggest it be treated as a "reward" or "extra curricular" program, so that the kids working feel special, and you weed out the potential troublemakers early. And for the price of a couple of scanners (70 bucks or less, which come with simple OCR software) and some PDF creation software (can you say Ghostscript - Free), you can get a lot of man-hours of cataloging done. The teacher will love the project - since it incorporates a number of disciplines they need to teach anyway. The students love it because it is "real", they can see their names on the web, and it is way less boring than the normal work. The museum will love it, as it is good PR for the museum, and really cheap and if any of the workproduct is sub-par, you can just chuck it. Just a thought, Jerry Johnson >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/16/02 03:45PM >>> One of the sites I volunteer my time for is considering putting their museum online (a virtual museum). I'm looking for ideas on how to accomplish this. When they say "virtual museum" they simply mean providing access to some/most/all of the museum resources online. We do not necessarily need a VRML environment (and I'd rather avoid the extra complexity). So basically a search engine to their resources. I have considered taking the content management route (meaning they upload Word/PDF/Image/etc. files, and it gets mapped into the site automatically), but am not yet convinced this is the best solution. Most of the museum artifacts are old magazines, pilot and maintenance manuals and such - well suited for content management I think. But I'm not sure if a CM system would be able to handle our particular needs for searching/sorting/storage. (I'd roll my own if we go this route, so that's not really a strong argument). Unfortunately, they only have maybe 1% (if that) of their resources in digital format thus far. Anyone want to offer ideas on how to approach this project?? It would be great to hear from someone who has but museum resources online before. If it helps, here is their current website: www.arrow2000.ab.ca This site is undergoing massive revisions (using the powers of Cold Fusion of course... <grins>) and will likely integrate with the "virtual museum" concept at a later date. Thanks for any feedback. I think this project is a bit bigger than I thought when I first agreed to take it on, but hey, I gotta learn how to handle a project of this size sooner or later... ______________________________________________________________________ Why Share? Dedicated Win 2000 Server · PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionc FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
