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Another telephone document resource

Started by Jim Stettler, July 21, 2017, 06:53:12 PM

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Jim Stettler

Here is an email from the TCI Listserver.
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Hi all,

This is Sarah, from the museum in Seattle (now called the Connections Museum for those keeping score at home). I recently had an idea to share documents from our museum in the following way:

We currently have hundreds of thousands of technical documents in our collection:

Over 500,000 aperture cards
A full compliment of BSPs  000-999
A full compliment of CDs
About 10,000 sheets mixed of SD, T, H, J, ES, and ED drawings.
Various schoolbooks and learning aids
Many of these documents are uploaded to archive.org, and can be accessed using the following link, or by searching by the document number or title: https://archive.org/details/bellsystem

I'd like to offer a service of scanning and uploading documents based on the needs of the TCI community. Since we do not have a dedicated archivist or librarian, this would require one of us to take the time to locate the document, scan and upload it. Turnaround time is from one week to one month, depending on how busy we are, and how difficult the document is to locate and scan. The time investment could be offset by a small suggested PayPal donation to the museum to keep our stomachs full of coffee and bagels. The requested documents would be scanned in 300-600 DPI, full color or B&W as appropriate, and be uploaded to archive.org, where the original files can be downloaded freely at any time. Once the requested files are uploaded, the community is free to share them in whatever way you'd like.

An example scan is linked here: https://archive.org/details/crossbar-dial-system-illustrations

Is there any interest in this as a service?

P.S. We upload to archive.org, instead of TCI, because of advantages offered by archive.org:

Full, high quality original file is downloadable in a variety of formats
Upload process is automatic, and does not require someone on the back-end to manually add the document to the library.
Archive.org is well-funded, and has petabytes of material in their collection. They will definitely be around for the foreseeable future.


Thanks,
Sarah Autumn
You live, You learn,
You die, you forget it all.

Jim Stettler

Here is the follow-up email:



Hi all,

Thanks for all the replies, both on the list, and to me personally. It sounds like there is quite a bit of interest in this, so I'm happy to officially offer it. Please see below for details and guidelines :)

To Request Documents
Send an email to requests@connectionsmusum.org
Please include as much of the following as possible:
Document type and number
Document Name
The major system that the circuit is part of
Example:
CD-21026
Automatic Testing of Subscriber's Senders
Panel System

If you'd like to make a donation, please PayPal info@museumofcommunications.org
If possible, please leave your name and the document you requested, just for our records!
Suggested donation for one A4 sized document is $5. Suggested donation for a full size drawing is $10. However you can donate whatever you think is appropriate, given your request.

After the document is scanned, I'll upload it to archive.org, and email back with a link to view or download the document.

Notes:
Please note that a donation is not mandatory to request documents. We are not selling anything, and you are free to do whatever you like with them. All donations will go towards museum operating costs.
If you prefer to make a donation only after you receive your requested document, that's just fine too.
If you don't do PayPal, state that in the request, and we can work something out :)
Please don't email me personally for document requests. I've set up the special email address so that requests will get sorted and forwarded. That way, things won't get lost in my personal inbox.

Thank you!
Sarah Autumn
You live, You learn,
You die, you forget it all.