JOD MicroFilm & finding aid

[Mark-Awakuni Swetland]

Aloha All:
I thought I better chime in on the discussion. I had broached the topic with
Brother John while visiting Boulder last week.

This grew out of a question that I had posed last month to the NAA about
current costs and options for copying the 8 JOD reels. I have a copy from
the original... but have been thinking it might be useful to provide a copy
up north to Omaha Nation Public School. I will let you know when the NAA
responds to my question.

The idea of getting this stuff off of a microfilm reader screen and into a
computer is great.

I am presuming (in my ignorance of the process) that someone could perform
the transfer using a copy of the films (mine or John's or whomsoever's)...
and not require access to the original film... or original documents????

Did any of you folks get a copy of the moderately useful finding aid that
was delivered back to the NAA with the original reels? I typed it (no
computer in those poverty days!). I can try scanning my copy into an
attached file and send it to anyone who wants it.

best
uthixide

Mark Awakuni-Swetland, Ph.D.
University of Nebraska
Anthropology/Ethnic Studies
Native American Studies
Bessey Hall 132
Lincoln, NE 68588-0368
402-472-3455
FAX 402-472-9642
mawakuni-swetland2 at unl.edu

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carolyn Q." <cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 2:37 PM
Subject: RE: Dorsey MicroFilm


> I am liking this whole discussion and would be happy to contribute a few
$$
> to the effort if it involves JOD's Osage slip file.  Would there be any
> problem getting access for scanning purposes?
> Carolyn Q.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Tom Leonard
> Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 12:29 PM
> To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> Subject: Re: Dorsey MicroFilm
>
>
> There are, indeed, services out there that will digitize the Dorsey
> microfilms. The problem, thus far, has been the expense. Those service
> companies aren't in it for the practice; the price comes real close to the
> quarter per page you'd pay at your local public library.
>
> Jim Duncan and I had access to a microfilm copier and we copied a great
deal
> of Dorsey's Osage slip file. However, the copier was old. The paper was
> expensive, made terrible copies, and it was painfully slow (over 1.5
minutes
> per page). The copier finally died and was sent to the junk heap.
>
> Seems to me that scanning (to obtain image files) is the way to go. OCR, I
> believe, is out of the question. OCR software sufficient to handle this
task
> would be cost prohibitive. I have a hunch the right scanner is now
available
> (at the right price) but I don't know enough about what would be required
in
> such equipment.
>
> I bet there's a technical department in a university somewhere that could
> tell us. Anyone have access to a "scanning techno-guru" that could shed
some
> light on the subject?
>
> TML
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Koontz John E" <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>
> To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 11:02 AM
> Subject: Re: Dorsey MicroFilm (fwd)
>
>
> > On Mon, 5 Jan 2004, Craig Kopris wrote:
> > > Services go beyond just putting the image on cd;
> > > companies will offer (for a greater fee) to clean up
> > > the results as well.  I avoided that "help", on the
> > > assumption that the cleaners wouldn't recognize old
> > > Jesuit handwritten diacritics as other than smudges.
> > > Indexing can be added, as well.
> >
> > What kind of cleaning up was proposed?  I assume that there was no
> > question of OCR with handwriting, let alone old handwriting.  The Dorsey
> > materials range through handwriting - not old Jesuit, but obscure enough
> > at times - and typescript with interpolated handwritten characters and
> > diacritics.  My understanding is that OCR even with pure typescript is
> > also more or less infeasible, unless maybe with newer typefaces, and
this
> > was all done in the 1880s and 1890s.  Anyway, I figured that images
would
> > be the best that could be done, and the only question is, what quality
of
> > image is good enough to make out the necessary details?
> >