My current bedding is far too large, given that it's just me. It's bad enough where I currently live, but in the room at Beth & Karen's that I'll be moving into, it's just not an option any longer; I need every inch of space I can get.
Most of my life I've slept on a mattress with no bedsprings, or a futon, or a pile of blankets, etc., so I'm not wedded to a traditional mattress/bedspring combination.
That's a good thing, as they are bloody expensive, if you want something that doesn't negatively impact someone with chemical sensitivity issues, such as my sister-in-law whose room is just across the hall.
I do, however, have a bed frame that I rather like, and would like to utilize. It's a standard twin, with 10.5" from the floor to the bottom of the cross-members of the headboard/footboard, and somewhat higher to the actual rails. Thus, there's storage space under it.
So.
A platform, which has supports that would rest on the rails, raising the actual surface for the bedding to a height that is comfortable for me to get on and off of.
Storage built into the support structure of the platform. Waste space is not an option.Either slats, or a rope bed suspension.
One or more wool mattress toppers.
Constructing this prior to moving is a good idea.
Actually, it's necessary that it occur first, as it needs to replace the bedding currently on the floor of the room I'll be moving into which also takes up far too much space; it has to happen prior to my being able to proceed any further with shifting stuff from Tacoma to Olympia.
2019-03-17
Some thoughts concerning finite resources and the longevity of our society.
This was initially a comment I posted as part of a story discussion.
It did get just a tad long, and off topic.
Which is par for the course with my comments.
*************
1) A slide rule doesn't require an energy source other than the user.
2) If not abused, a slide rule should be able to remain fully functional for centuries.
Neither of the above can be said of modern electronics.
***Begin pessimistic view of the not-so-distant future***
Petroleum is running out.
To date, no initiatives have been successful in developing alternate energy sources will which maintain our current level of energy consumption.
At least part of that is the result of action on the part of Petroleum Industry leaders who aren't thinking any further ahead than their profits from the next five to ten years; they know damn well that Petroleum is a finite resource, but aren't taking any action to research alternatives themselves (which would be in the best interest of the long term health of their businesses), and actively lobby to make things as difficult as possible for anyone else to do so.
They are aided in this by many of the other leaders in established Energy Production businesses; they don't want increased competition, but at the same time don't want to reduce current profits by investing in research into matters which are vital to the long term health of their companies and society as a whole.
Which bugs the hell out of me.
They aren't acting as proper custodians for their businesses and as a result... well, when petroleum finally dries up, without other sources of energy to take up the slack, things are gonna get nasty.
This doesn't even take into account all the things we use petroleum as a base ingredient in for manufacturing.
As with petroleum, many other materials necessary for the production of modern electronics are non-renewable resources; they will run out.
Yet, as a society, we refuse to insist that as near total recycling of these materials as possible be made to happen; so long as the cost of disposing of our trash is left to the end user, manufacturers have no short term economic incentive to invest in efforts to recycle the materials they require for manufacturing from our trash.
If the cost of disposing of non-biodegradable materials was included as a standard expense of manufacturing, then they would have an economic incentive to recycle.
So long as they can disclaim any responsibility for their products after they exit warranty, it will remain cheaper to obtain new raw materials rather than recycled materials until the sources of raw materials are near depletion.
What does all of this have to do with slide rules?
If nothing is done, the time is approaching where slide rules will still function... and there are no modern electronics.
I'm 58.
This may or my not come to pass within my lifetime.
I'm very pessimistic about it not happening during the lifetime of people alive today, if society doesn't take decisive action in the very near future.
It's clear that an unregulated market won't take proper action concerning this, since the current marketplace is successfully avoiding being held accountable.
I'm not advocating the destruction of the free market system.
I'm not aware of anything that could replace it that would work as well.
But, I am advocating that the expenses of disposing of their products after they cease functioning be included as part of their fixed costs, and that any form of disposal that does not include as complete a salvaging of reusable materials as possible carry penalties such that it would cost less to do the recycling in the first place.
I'd also suggest that a surcharge be applied to the purchase of raw materials when there are applicable recycled materials available, such that it becomes economically non-viable to use new materials if functionally equivalent recycled materials are available.
Recycling will not occur so long as there is no economic incentive to do so.
Thus, it is necessary to make it clear that there is such an incentive.
It is also necessary to manage our "renewable" resources such that they actually do renew in a timely manner, and that an increase in the need for such materials be included in the calculations used to determine what the minimums are for maintaining long term viability of "renewable" resources.
After all... the Passenger Pigeon was a "renewable" resource.
Which we hunted to extinction.
What is now the Sahara Desert was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire.
To be truly renewable or sustainable, we have to actually do what it takes to sustain them.
***End pessimistic view of the not-so-distant future***
It did get just a tad long, and off topic.
Which is par for the course with my comments.
*************
1) A slide rule doesn't require an energy source other than the user.
2) If not abused, a slide rule should be able to remain fully functional for centuries.
Neither of the above can be said of modern electronics.
***Begin pessimistic view of the not-so-distant future***
Petroleum is running out.
To date, no initiatives have been successful in developing alternate energy sources will which maintain our current level of energy consumption.
At least part of that is the result of action on the part of Petroleum Industry leaders who aren't thinking any further ahead than their profits from the next five to ten years; they know damn well that Petroleum is a finite resource, but aren't taking any action to research alternatives themselves (which would be in the best interest of the long term health of their businesses), and actively lobby to make things as difficult as possible for anyone else to do so.
They are aided in this by many of the other leaders in established Energy Production businesses; they don't want increased competition, but at the same time don't want to reduce current profits by investing in research into matters which are vital to the long term health of their companies and society as a whole.
Which bugs the hell out of me.
They aren't acting as proper custodians for their businesses and as a result... well, when petroleum finally dries up, without other sources of energy to take up the slack, things are gonna get nasty.
This doesn't even take into account all the things we use petroleum as a base ingredient in for manufacturing.
As with petroleum, many other materials necessary for the production of modern electronics are non-renewable resources; they will run out.
Yet, as a society, we refuse to insist that as near total recycling of these materials as possible be made to happen; so long as the cost of disposing of our trash is left to the end user, manufacturers have no short term economic incentive to invest in efforts to recycle the materials they require for manufacturing from our trash.
If the cost of disposing of non-biodegradable materials was included as a standard expense of manufacturing, then they would have an economic incentive to recycle.
So long as they can disclaim any responsibility for their products after they exit warranty, it will remain cheaper to obtain new raw materials rather than recycled materials until the sources of raw materials are near depletion.
What does all of this have to do with slide rules?
If nothing is done, the time is approaching where slide rules will still function... and there are no modern electronics.
I'm 58.
This may or my not come to pass within my lifetime.
I'm very pessimistic about it not happening during the lifetime of people alive today, if society doesn't take decisive action in the very near future.
It's clear that an unregulated market won't take proper action concerning this, since the current marketplace is successfully avoiding being held accountable.
I'm not advocating the destruction of the free market system.
I'm not aware of anything that could replace it that would work as well.
But, I am advocating that the expenses of disposing of their products after they cease functioning be included as part of their fixed costs, and that any form of disposal that does not include as complete a salvaging of reusable materials as possible carry penalties such that it would cost less to do the recycling in the first place.
I'd also suggest that a surcharge be applied to the purchase of raw materials when there are applicable recycled materials available, such that it becomes economically non-viable to use new materials if functionally equivalent recycled materials are available.
Recycling will not occur so long as there is no economic incentive to do so.
Thus, it is necessary to make it clear that there is such an incentive.
It is also necessary to manage our "renewable" resources such that they actually do renew in a timely manner, and that an increase in the need for such materials be included in the calculations used to determine what the minimums are for maintaining long term viability of "renewable" resources.
After all... the Passenger Pigeon was a "renewable" resource.
Which we hunted to extinction.
What is now the Sahara Desert was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire.
To be truly renewable or sustainable, we have to actually do what it takes to sustain them.
***End pessimistic view of the not-so-distant future***
2018-02-21
Actions to take to prepare for Barnes & Noble going out of business
If Barnes & Noble does go under, there are ramifications for everyone who has purchased ePubs from them.
They will be gone.
You will not be able to access them online.
If they are physically downloaded onto your device, you will be able to keep them.
The current NOOK reader app for the Windows environment does not allow you to download your NOOK books, it only allows you to access them online.
If, like myself, you still have a copy of NOOK for PC, you can download your NOOK ePubs to your PC.
While no longer available from Barnes & Noble, that program can still be downloaded via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20120211053432/http://images.barnesandnoble.com/PResources/download/eReader2/bndr2_setup_latest.exe The following link will download the equivalent program for the Mac. https://web.archive.org/web/20120211053436/http://images.barnesandnoble.com/PResources/download/ereader2/bn/mac/NOOKforMac.dmg.zip Please, spread this far and wide.
You have legitimately purchased these ePubs. You should not lose access to them because Barnes & Noble's executives have decided to scuttle the company.
Barnes & Noble's ePubs have DRM. There are legal programs that will remove their DRM; if Barnes & Noble does go out of business, you have every right to remove that DRM so that you can continue to access your legally purchased eBooks.
I'm sick and tired of loosing access to legally purchased products because the company selling them goes out of business and thus no longer is there to authorize the software to run.
In this particular case, by being proactive, we can avoid that happening to us.
But it has to be done prior to Barnes & Noble officially closing. Once they shut down their website, it's all over. The Wayback Machine will not work for accessing your NOOK books, it has to be done via a connection to a live website.
Not all NOOK ePubs are compatible with their Windows programs. So if you have been using a NOOK eReader, or a NOOK Android or iOS app, it's possible you have NOOK content that will have to be downloaded onto that device to preserve it.
Most of the programs to remove DRM require access to your account, so this has to be done while Barnes & Noble is still active.
Note: the links aren't to the very latest versions of NOOK for PC and NOOK for Mac. The link downloads NOOK for PC 2.5.5.something, the last version released was 2.5.6.something. It's possible that there exists a more recent capture of the software, this will do the job, so I didn't keep looking; there are limits to my altruism.
2018-01-01
More thoughts on transcription.
A major problem when transcribing from copies, is the quality of the copy. How easy is it to make out the letters? Sometimes quality control wasn't very good during the imaging process, other times the physical condition of the item being imaged was poor.
If there is only one copy available, you live with it. You do the best you can, make a list of the words you have low confidence in, and find out if it is possible to have someone look at the original to see if they can clear things up.
But there may be other copies out there. Search around a bit, and see if you can find alternate images for the sections causing you problems. For this, you don't need a complete copy, just a clearer one of the problem area.
Case in point.
I started working on Saviolo again today; it's been at least a month since I last did, maybe closer to two. And there was a word split between two lines, where I just couldn't make out the first two letters on the second line, and was totally unable to guess what the word should be. For the longest time I'd thought the only scan of Saviolo on the web was the one in the Raymond Lord Collection. But it had recently been forceably brought to my attention that Wiktenauer and HROARR had copies of manuals that I hadn't been aware of, so I thought I'd check and see. Wiktenauer only had a link to the Lord Collection copy, but HROARR had that and two additional scans.
They were from the same printing of 1595, but not from the same copy. Clearly not the same copy. The Lord copy was scanned from a bound volume, and text in the gutter was sometimes hard to make out, which is the problem I was experiencing. These two scans which were new to me, were from unbound copies, it appears; at least, that's the only explanation for adjacent pages in a two page scan being at such odd angles in relation to each other. You wouldn't be able to OCR these scans, in all likelyhood, because they are so galiwonky; OK, if you separated the adjacent pages, and then did incremental image rotations on each page, you might get something oriented such that it could be dropped into an OCR program, but you'd have your work cut out for yourself.
Looking at the text that was unreadable in the Lord scan, it was easy to make out the letters. One of them was a printer's contraction, which explained why I couldn't figure out what two letters needed to be added to make a recognizable word that fit in context; it needed three letters inserted, not two.
Lesson learned.
Always check to see if additional images are available. Even if only one original exists, and they no longer allow imaging of it, it's possible someone made a photocopy or took a camera picture of the section you are having problems with somewhere along the line before they clamped down on imaging, and it might be a cleaner copy of that section. If a published work, odds go up for other copies having been imaged at other locations. Or someone else might have attempted a transcription prior to the original deteriorating to it's current state, and consulting it might help clear things up.
And, always try and find web sites dedicated to your subject matter; they may be aware of copies that you didn't know about, or in other ways have useful information, such as glossories of terms used in works such as the one you are working on, so that you will clue into valid spellings that you weren't aware of. While it's possible to do an accurate transcription without understanding the subject matter, if sections of the original are hard to make out, knowledge of the subject being dealt with may help, provided you have access to sources which use contemporaneous terminology. Terminology changes; the terms used four hundred years ago may well differ from those in current use. That, after all, is one of the reasons for attempting a transcription rather than a retelling, to preserve the period terminology and practise.
Don't try and operate in a vacuum.
If there is only one copy available, you live with it. You do the best you can, make a list of the words you have low confidence in, and find out if it is possible to have someone look at the original to see if they can clear things up.
But there may be other copies out there. Search around a bit, and see if you can find alternate images for the sections causing you problems. For this, you don't need a complete copy, just a clearer one of the problem area.
Case in point.
I started working on Saviolo again today; it's been at least a month since I last did, maybe closer to two. And there was a word split between two lines, where I just couldn't make out the first two letters on the second line, and was totally unable to guess what the word should be. For the longest time I'd thought the only scan of Saviolo on the web was the one in the Raymond Lord Collection. But it had recently been forceably brought to my attention that Wiktenauer and HROARR had copies of manuals that I hadn't been aware of, so I thought I'd check and see. Wiktenauer only had a link to the Lord Collection copy, but HROARR had that and two additional scans.
They were from the same printing of 1595, but not from the same copy. Clearly not the same copy. The Lord copy was scanned from a bound volume, and text in the gutter was sometimes hard to make out, which is the problem I was experiencing. These two scans which were new to me, were from unbound copies, it appears; at least, that's the only explanation for adjacent pages in a two page scan being at such odd angles in relation to each other. You wouldn't be able to OCR these scans, in all likelyhood, because they are so galiwonky; OK, if you separated the adjacent pages, and then did incremental image rotations on each page, you might get something oriented such that it could be dropped into an OCR program, but you'd have your work cut out for yourself.
Looking at the text that was unreadable in the Lord scan, it was easy to make out the letters. One of them was a printer's contraction, which explained why I couldn't figure out what two letters needed to be added to make a recognizable word that fit in context; it needed three letters inserted, not two.
Lesson learned.
Always check to see if additional images are available. Even if only one original exists, and they no longer allow imaging of it, it's possible someone made a photocopy or took a camera picture of the section you are having problems with somewhere along the line before they clamped down on imaging, and it might be a cleaner copy of that section. If a published work, odds go up for other copies having been imaged at other locations. Or someone else might have attempted a transcription prior to the original deteriorating to it's current state, and consulting it might help clear things up.
And, always try and find web sites dedicated to your subject matter; they may be aware of copies that you didn't know about, or in other ways have useful information, such as glossories of terms used in works such as the one you are working on, so that you will clue into valid spellings that you weren't aware of. While it's possible to do an accurate transcription without understanding the subject matter, if sections of the original are hard to make out, knowledge of the subject being dealt with may help, provided you have access to sources which use contemporaneous terminology. Terminology changes; the terms used four hundred years ago may well differ from those in current use. That, after all, is one of the reasons for attempting a transcription rather than a retelling, to preserve the period terminology and practise.
Don't try and operate in a vacuum.
2017-11-02
Guaconics: a new field for socioeconomic study
I seriously doubt that this term existed before it came to me while I was half asleep this morning. I have no clue if anyone has started focusing on research in this area, although I have read articles in The Atlantic which directly impinge upon it.
Guaconics is the study of the socioeconomic interrelationships of Internet Access and Social Media. Short for Group Union Access, it studies the impact of 1) How you standardly access the Internet (do you own access to the Internet, or utilize access points such as the public library? If you own your access methods, do you predominently access using mobile computing, or a desktop/laptop? Within those, which OS family do you predominently belong to, iOS, Android, OS X, Windows, Linux? What browser do you utilize the most?) 2) which Social Media providers do you have accounts with, and within that, which ones you are most active on? 3) If you have a Blog, which provider is it with? 4) Which Information Aggregators do you utilize? 5) Which Original Article publishers do you most rely upon? 6) Which Satire sites do you frequent, and do you realize they are satire? When you see something shared from a Satire site, do you recognize that it's satire, or do you think it's factual? 7) Do you check the sources of information you come across on the Internet as to whether they are impartial, or if they are putting an ideological spin into the information they provide? Do you access the sources for the information they provide, to see if they are providing a valid interpretation of the source documents? Do you investigate the validity of the source documents?
What got me started thinking about this was 1) An article in The Atlantic which discussed the impact Facebooks like/share algorithms which determine what shows up in your feed had upon the 2016 Presidential Election, 2) theSkimm only providing access to their added content via an iOS app and The Week only providing an iOS digital subscription option, and Instagram only providing full functionality to mobile users; you can't post pictures or download pictures from a desktop, only from mobile platforms.
I'm a late joiner, when it comes to Social Media. I just tried to determine when I joined Facebook, and found that this wasn't information they provided as part of your account information, but I know it was after I moved to Tacoma, WA in 2012; I only joined Twitter this year. I started this Blog in 2008, but after an initial period of high activity, for a great many years I posted little or nothing at all; Blogger is a less useful platform for Blogging than some of the competitors, such as Wordpress, but I'm reluctant to change platforms. I came late to cellphones, first obtaining one in the 2001, when I transfered my father's cellphone account to my name, and didn't get a smartphone until a couple of years ago, when I was forced to upgrade my existing phone because its communication interface was no longer supported, and saw that I could get an Android smartphone contract for only $5.00/month more than a non-smartphone. To date, I've gone online via my smartphone less than five times, and those were all cases where I was blocked from accessing the Internet via my Windows 10 Desktop, and needed to contact Microsoft Support. Yes, I'm an aberation within modern society. That was already clear, since I've only posted one picture of a cat on social media; the number of cat pictures I just saw while looking through Instagram was significant, from many different sources. I installed iTunes this year, and have yet to add anything to it.
Anyway. The article in The Atlantic made me aware of something I'd been peripheraly aware of, but it hadn't really sunk in. There are a number of Facebook friends where many posts show in my feed, and a number where I no longer see any posts. I'd just assumed it indicated that, like myself, they didn't post that often. Not so. Your Facebook feed is filtered based upon what you like/share, to increase the number of like/shares; this ties in with Facebook's revenue source, as it allows for closely targetted advertising. So Facebook does this purely from a revenue generating perspective, and hadn't really considered what impact it had upon people interacting with people of differing viewpoints, and how people access information sources. Neither, really, had anyone else, until the aftermath of the 2016 Presidential Election Campaign, trying to determine how the Left had so misjudged what the results would be.
[Now we move away from Guaconics, to commentary on our current society. As usual, I can't stay on track to save my life.]
Not entirely true, as it becomes clear that certain Conservative PACs had looked into this, and had seen just how much it could multiply the impact of their advertising expenses; they could zero in on those most likely to respond positively to their message, while keeping their opposition completely in the dark about the fact that they were doing any advertising at all. Not to say that the Left wasn't doing the very same thing, but nowhere near as well; the Left is nowhere near as unified as the Right, it appears.
All segments of the Left seem to have something in common, the belief that you can effect social change through legislation; it is true that you can change how people behave in public based upon fear of punishment, but that is coercion, not a change in how they really view the world; anyway, while all segments of the Left share this belief, they are fragmented as to which of the social changes they would cause via legislation is the most important.
The Right, although having some disparate philosophies and ideologies of their own, is united in their viewing social change forced by legislation as infringing upon their personal liberties guaranteed under the Constitution, and was able to unite behind a candidate who promised to repeal as many regulations as possible; that there might be real negative impacts upon them as a result wasn't as important as that the legislation had been enacted without their consent; the Left focuses on the negative results of unrestricted personal liberties, in that an individual's freely made actions can negatively impact others, while the Right focuses on not wanting their actions restricted any more than absolutely necessary for the functioning of a society.
This is not to say that there aren't those who are grouped within the Right who wouldn't legislate social change themselves if they had the power to do so, in regard to enacting legislation to institutionalize things based upon their own strongly held beliefs, they just don't view legislation based upon their interpretations of Holy Scripture as limiting individuals personal liberties guaranteed under the Constitution, as God's Laws supercede Man's Laws.
Both sides are blind to the irony of it's being acceptable to enact legislation forcing others to act outwardly in accordance with their own beliefs while resisting legislation that would force them to outwardly act in accordance with someone else's beliefs.
And, there are those who would deny being part of the Right, who support their legislative actions to repeal regulations because they oppose regulations in general, as an unConstitutional restriction of personal liberties, but oppose legislation by the Right to enact regulations, for that very same reason. They don't want anyone enacting regulations to restrict freedom of choice, that would impose other's beliefs upon anyone. They have a far rosier view of human nature than I have, in regard to the society they believe this would result in; I've read some Libertarian SF, and it flatly contradicts the historical record of what life was like prior to the regulations they oppose being enacted.
Which gets to where I stand in regard to these issues. Which is to say, with none of these groups, while in some ways with all of them.
I will not argue as to whether anyone has the right to impose their beliefs upon others. I will merely state that any examination of the history of our species shows that once you get a group of any appreciable size someone ends up being in charge, given dominance by those who support that individual's agenda. Many different methods of selecting the individual(s) in charge have been tried, with varying results as to their competency. The period of time a given individual is supposed to be in charge has varied, from a few scant months to life appointments. In all cases the individual purportedly in charge has only remained in that position so long as they have had the tacit approval of the populace as a whole, and the active support of the economic leaders and the civil/military law enforcement structures; while it helps to have the support of the various political organizations, given the active support of the economic magnates and the armed forces, that can be despensed with. Tacit approval of the populace as a whole translates into their not being in armed revolt; other resistance is ultimately futile given the support of the Captains of Industry (or their period equivalents) and the Armed Forces, and given solid enough backing by the military, even the Captains of Industry can be dispensed with. I admit this is a very dark perspective on our history, but I also believe it is accurate. It is a reality that only those interested in having power over others will seek to attain a position which gives them power over others; no one aspires to management who doesn't desire the authority to see that things are done the way they think they should be done. The greater the amount of authority required to implement their vision of how they think things should be, the higher in the power structure they will seek to be. This applies equally to those whose vision is simply that they want to be the one giving all the orders, as to those who have a grand vision of how society should be structured for the benefit of all of its constituents; they all have a vision of how things should be that requires them to obtain a position of dominance to effect. As a result, power over others accrues to those who seek to have power over others, and can obtain the support of the established apparatus for selecting those in positions of authority; a military backed coup is an established method of selecting those in a position of authority, and is probably more faithful to the origins of civilized society than anyone is comfortable acknowledgeing. It definately is a more accurate description of the founding of the United States of America than you will find in the history books; it speaks very highly of the leadership of the American Revolutionary forces that they actively sought to establish a system of checks and balances upon themselves and their successors to prevent the development of a situation such as they had found themselves in, where there was sufficient popular support for the armed overthrow of the established government that it was successfully attempted. As it was, their original vision was nowhere near so broad as has been attributed to them in the years following. Yes, they established an elected representative leadership; read up on who initially was granted the franchise, and they won't seem quite so enlightened as they are made to appear. Trust me on this (DON"T! DO go read up on this!), if those same criteria were in place today, adjusted to reflect inflation, the vast majority of the current electorate would not be enfranchised.
On military support for those at the top of the structure. So long as the military is composed of a representave sampling of the population as a whole, it is unlikely to support the violent suppression of established civil liberties, if those civil liberties have the support of the population as a whole. If it ever comes to pass that the military is composed primarily of the adherents of one faction within society, it will become amenable to suppressing the civil liberties of those that faction disagrees with. This, in and itself, is an argument for a universal draft of all elegable citizens to serve time within the military. An all volunteer military is much more amenable to the long term cooption of its leadership positions by members of one faction than a military constituted upon universal conscription; while it can, and has, been accomplished in both situations, it is much more difficult to do with universal conscription, provided there is a means for promotion from the lowest ranks to the highest, such that it doesn't develope an effective caste system, where upper leadership is drawn from a pool that preselects for a desire to be in a position of military leadership and can afford the cost of attending a military academy. This is not to deny that service families have been the backbone of every military within the history of our race, but where you have service families, their values can, and most likely will, diverge from those of mainstream society; really, they have, or there wouldn't be distinct service families as opposed to the rest of the citizenry; just how those values differ from the majority populace is a crucial datum regarding their willingness to cooperate with an overthrow of the established civil authority, either by cooperating with those at the top not stepping down when they are supposed to, or assisting someone else in supplanting those currently at the top. Universal conscription is also a more effective method of exposing your citizenry to those of different economic, eductional, and cultural groups than any other, provided that military units are not comprised of heterogenous groups. By having your citizens serve alongside a representative sampling of the population as a whole they are given an exposure to those outside of their self-selecting socioeconomic polity, with, hopefully, beneficial results in regard to how they judge those members of the other socioeconomic sectors of society at large; of course, they may just have their pre-existing beliefs confirmed, but at least then they'll have some solid basis for their beliefs based upon personal experience in a semi-level playing field. At the very least, it should show them that there are hard workers and slackards within all segments of society. And it has to stick in the craw of those who volunteer for military service, for whatever reason, the disdain for this service expressed by a significant number in the liberal left. While it is very arguable that a significant percentage of the military actions we've been involved in since the Second World War didn't turn out all that well, that is not, ultimately, attributable to the military, but to their civilian overseers. The rules of engagement forced upon them, the sub-contracting to private firms things that should have been left to the military, the various constraints upon their actions that were purely political rather than operationally necessary. Changes to military hardware dictated by the economic benefit to a given Congressman's home district rather than what represents the best value in actual conflict. You do the best that you can, but it's hard to win a three legged race when you don't have a partner and you're an amputee.
On preferential treatment as a means of righting past socioeconomic wrongs. It will only be successful to the extent that those individuals who are the recipients of that preferential treatment demonstrate that they can do the job. Case in point, speaking from my personal experience with the negative results of preferential treatment established for this purpose. When I worked at the Chicago Public Library, the actual process of ordering the items to be purchased for our collections was outsourced; in other words, we still made all the decisions in regard to what was to be ordered, but teh actual process of contacting teh various publishers and book jobbers to order, tack, and pay for the items once received, was outsourced. When the Chicago City Council approved doing this, they added the stipulation that it had to be contracted to a minority-owned business within Chicago. Well, there weren't any minority-owned businesses within Chicago with experience in this area, and the firm that got the bid, we never successfully ordered a single item via them; this was in the 1990s, the Internet was in its infancy. They didn't answer the telephone number we were given to contact them, they didn't respond to our written letters. So, we relied upon the fall-back policy that thankfully had been approved; after three attempts on different days to contact them, we could go ahead and process the order ourselves. This is probably one of the worst examples that could be provided of the negative aspects of preferential treatment, in that someone who proved themselves unable to do the job was given the job purely because of legislated social engineering. If they prove themselves capable of fulfilling the requirements of the job on a day to day basis, I have no problems with preferential treatment as a route to eliminating the impact of past discrimination. Speaking purely as a manager, I'd prefer to get the applicant who will do the best job possible out of those applying for a given position, but so long as they discharge the listed job responsibilities, I'll go along with preferential treatment as a a method of helping people out of an economic situation forced upon their ancestors, where it negatively impacted their ability to get the background necessary to do the job; given the discrimination my father experienced, and in his case it was based upon his having his right leg amputated below the knee, I recognize the reality of what discrimination can do; dad was refused a promotion, and then requested to train the individual who got the job because he was the best qualified individual to train him in the responsibilities of the job, based upon the fact that he was an amputee. They said so to his face. It was an accounting firm. How does his missing the lower part of a leg impact his ability to do accounting, or to supervise others? Obviously it didn't, since they wanted him to train the individual who got the job. This was in the 1950s, the ADA would have prevented them from being that open about why they made their decision today; it still happens, but they have to be much more subtle about it. Dad wasn't having any of it, he quit then and there. Fortunately, there was a market for experienced accountants at the time, so he wasn't unemployed for long. What drove dad to where he quit wasn't that someone else got the job, but that a less qualified person got the job based upon non-rational discrimination, and they acknowledged that this was the case to his face, and then added insult to injury by asking him to train the person who actually got the job. My expereince, and my father's experience, is why my support for preferential treatment as social engineering has the caveat that they still have to be capable of doing the job; it does no one any good to be hired over someone else and then end up being fired because you can't actually fulfill the responsibilities of the position, and I have to say, again speaking as a former manager, that it's a lot harder to fire someone from within a group being granted preferential treatment than it is to fire someone not in such a group, because of the level of documentation required to withstand charges of discrimination; it's not enough to document that the specific individual isn't doing the job, you have to document how everyone in equivalent positions is doing to show that, in fact, they are the one doing the poorest job of all, and that it falls below the minimum acceptable performance levels, and that no one who is being retained falls below those levels; in an ideal world this level of documentation would exist as a matter of course, but the reality is that no one can afford the time and effort involved, no one is staffed at that level. I've seen it succesfully done once, at the Chicago Public Library. In that case it had a positive impact upon another worker who had been hired for similer reasons, but who was discharging his responsibilities in good order; his self-esteem went way up, because he truly internalized that if he wasn't doing the job, he'd have been fired; seeing this other chap get fired for not doing his job was the beginning of an incredible change as he realized that he really was valued for what he was doing, and he started actively improving a lot of things in his life. It was amazing to watch. It's been twenty years since I've had any contact with him, and I've forgotten his last name, but it's stuck in my mind how his realizing that he'd held onto his job through merit really turned his world view around. Which does point out the major problem with preferential treatment, no matter who is getting that preferential treatment, how the nagging question of if you really measure up has to wear at those who know they have received it and aren't sure they are truly worthy of the position they hold must be; of course, in general, the only ones that's going to bother are those who do measure up in the truly important things.
The other thing that impacts my feelings on the above matter is this. I'm a retired librarian. I'm a white male. For a very long time, in libraries, you had a greater number of female librarians than male librarians, yet the Library Director was always male. And he might not even have an MLS. Case in point, again at the Chicago Public Library, there was an individual who the City Powers That Be wanted as Library Director, who didn't have an MLS. Now, this wasn't going to fly, because Illinois State Law requires Public Library Directors have an MLS. So they hired someone else as Library Director, and created an assistant position for the guy they really wanted in the job, and gave him all the actual responsibilities; needless to say, paying for two top administrative positions rather than one loused up the Library budget big time. The guy was an ass. He didn't have the background for the job, and really fucked things up. I'm not going to name him, anyone really interested can do the research and find out. I will name his immediate successor, because she's now the Librarian of Congress, and did an absolutely bangup job during the time she was in charge at CPL; it was only for a couple of years, then she moved on to bigger and better things, but Carla Hayden is one sharp cookie, who impressed the hell out of me. She's the first female Librarian of Congress. She's the first African-American Librarian of Congress. She's the first Librarian of Congress in over sixty years to actually come from a background of working in libraries. Those of us who have had the experience of working for her, however indirectly (hey, I was an L2, which is the lowest supervisory Librarian position at CPL, I never had any direct interaction with her) are very, very pleased at this, because we all think she's done a great job. And if you look into her background, she's worked her way from being a front line Children's Librarian to where she is now on merit; while there may have been some preference at times, she always excelled at the job once she had it. Yes, she was appointed while Barack Obama was President, and she is friends with the Obama's, but she was also best qualified for the job amongst those being considered. Major caveat, she was able to do all of it on merit because her parents were well to do and she could afford to go to the good universities. So in her case, all being part of a "preference" group did was wipe out discrimination due to her being female and Black; once given a level playing field, she did it all on her own abilities. Which, ideally, is what preferential consideration as part of social engineering is supposed to do; give people the opportunity to show they've got what it takes while attempting to undo the impact of generations of deliberate discrimination, which, when it works, helps to prove that it was indeed discrimination rather than the discriminated upon group's innate lack of ability in that field, since, when given the chance, they got the job done.
Oy. I've been working on this for hours. As usual, it has wandered very far astray from where I started.
Guaconics is the study of the socioeconomic interrelationships of Internet Access and Social Media. Short for Group Union Access, it studies the impact of 1) How you standardly access the Internet (do you own access to the Internet, or utilize access points such as the public library? If you own your access methods, do you predominently access using mobile computing, or a desktop/laptop? Within those, which OS family do you predominently belong to, iOS, Android, OS X, Windows, Linux? What browser do you utilize the most?) 2) which Social Media providers do you have accounts with, and within that, which ones you are most active on? 3) If you have a Blog, which provider is it with? 4) Which Information Aggregators do you utilize? 5) Which Original Article publishers do you most rely upon? 6) Which Satire sites do you frequent, and do you realize they are satire? When you see something shared from a Satire site, do you recognize that it's satire, or do you think it's factual? 7) Do you check the sources of information you come across on the Internet as to whether they are impartial, or if they are putting an ideological spin into the information they provide? Do you access the sources for the information they provide, to see if they are providing a valid interpretation of the source documents? Do you investigate the validity of the source documents?
What got me started thinking about this was 1) An article in The Atlantic which discussed the impact Facebooks like/share algorithms which determine what shows up in your feed had upon the 2016 Presidential Election, 2) theSkimm only providing access to their added content via an iOS app and The Week only providing an iOS digital subscription option, and Instagram only providing full functionality to mobile users; you can't post pictures or download pictures from a desktop, only from mobile platforms.
I'm a late joiner, when it comes to Social Media. I just tried to determine when I joined Facebook, and found that this wasn't information they provided as part of your account information, but I know it was after I moved to Tacoma, WA in 2012; I only joined Twitter this year. I started this Blog in 2008, but after an initial period of high activity, for a great many years I posted little or nothing at all; Blogger is a less useful platform for Blogging than some of the competitors, such as Wordpress, but I'm reluctant to change platforms. I came late to cellphones, first obtaining one in the 2001, when I transfered my father's cellphone account to my name, and didn't get a smartphone until a couple of years ago, when I was forced to upgrade my existing phone because its communication interface was no longer supported, and saw that I could get an Android smartphone contract for only $5.00/month more than a non-smartphone. To date, I've gone online via my smartphone less than five times, and those were all cases where I was blocked from accessing the Internet via my Windows 10 Desktop, and needed to contact Microsoft Support. Yes, I'm an aberation within modern society. That was already clear, since I've only posted one picture of a cat on social media; the number of cat pictures I just saw while looking through Instagram was significant, from many different sources. I installed iTunes this year, and have yet to add anything to it.
Anyway. The article in The Atlantic made me aware of something I'd been peripheraly aware of, but it hadn't really sunk in. There are a number of Facebook friends where many posts show in my feed, and a number where I no longer see any posts. I'd just assumed it indicated that, like myself, they didn't post that often. Not so. Your Facebook feed is filtered based upon what you like/share, to increase the number of like/shares; this ties in with Facebook's revenue source, as it allows for closely targetted advertising. So Facebook does this purely from a revenue generating perspective, and hadn't really considered what impact it had upon people interacting with people of differing viewpoints, and how people access information sources. Neither, really, had anyone else, until the aftermath of the 2016 Presidential Election Campaign, trying to determine how the Left had so misjudged what the results would be.
[Now we move away from Guaconics, to commentary on our current society. As usual, I can't stay on track to save my life.]
Not entirely true, as it becomes clear that certain Conservative PACs had looked into this, and had seen just how much it could multiply the impact of their advertising expenses; they could zero in on those most likely to respond positively to their message, while keeping their opposition completely in the dark about the fact that they were doing any advertising at all. Not to say that the Left wasn't doing the very same thing, but nowhere near as well; the Left is nowhere near as unified as the Right, it appears.
All segments of the Left seem to have something in common, the belief that you can effect social change through legislation; it is true that you can change how people behave in public based upon fear of punishment, but that is coercion, not a change in how they really view the world; anyway, while all segments of the Left share this belief, they are fragmented as to which of the social changes they would cause via legislation is the most important.
The Right, although having some disparate philosophies and ideologies of their own, is united in their viewing social change forced by legislation as infringing upon their personal liberties guaranteed under the Constitution, and was able to unite behind a candidate who promised to repeal as many regulations as possible; that there might be real negative impacts upon them as a result wasn't as important as that the legislation had been enacted without their consent; the Left focuses on the negative results of unrestricted personal liberties, in that an individual's freely made actions can negatively impact others, while the Right focuses on not wanting their actions restricted any more than absolutely necessary for the functioning of a society.
This is not to say that there aren't those who are grouped within the Right who wouldn't legislate social change themselves if they had the power to do so, in regard to enacting legislation to institutionalize things based upon their own strongly held beliefs, they just don't view legislation based upon their interpretations of Holy Scripture as limiting individuals personal liberties guaranteed under the Constitution, as God's Laws supercede Man's Laws.
Both sides are blind to the irony of it's being acceptable to enact legislation forcing others to act outwardly in accordance with their own beliefs while resisting legislation that would force them to outwardly act in accordance with someone else's beliefs.
And, there are those who would deny being part of the Right, who support their legislative actions to repeal regulations because they oppose regulations in general, as an unConstitutional restriction of personal liberties, but oppose legislation by the Right to enact regulations, for that very same reason. They don't want anyone enacting regulations to restrict freedom of choice, that would impose other's beliefs upon anyone. They have a far rosier view of human nature than I have, in regard to the society they believe this would result in; I've read some Libertarian SF, and it flatly contradicts the historical record of what life was like prior to the regulations they oppose being enacted.
Which gets to where I stand in regard to these issues. Which is to say, with none of these groups, while in some ways with all of them.
I will not argue as to whether anyone has the right to impose their beliefs upon others. I will merely state that any examination of the history of our species shows that once you get a group of any appreciable size someone ends up being in charge, given dominance by those who support that individual's agenda. Many different methods of selecting the individual(s) in charge have been tried, with varying results as to their competency. The period of time a given individual is supposed to be in charge has varied, from a few scant months to life appointments. In all cases the individual purportedly in charge has only remained in that position so long as they have had the tacit approval of the populace as a whole, and the active support of the economic leaders and the civil/military law enforcement structures; while it helps to have the support of the various political organizations, given the active support of the economic magnates and the armed forces, that can be despensed with. Tacit approval of the populace as a whole translates into their not being in armed revolt; other resistance is ultimately futile given the support of the Captains of Industry (or their period equivalents) and the Armed Forces, and given solid enough backing by the military, even the Captains of Industry can be dispensed with. I admit this is a very dark perspective on our history, but I also believe it is accurate. It is a reality that only those interested in having power over others will seek to attain a position which gives them power over others; no one aspires to management who doesn't desire the authority to see that things are done the way they think they should be done. The greater the amount of authority required to implement their vision of how they think things should be, the higher in the power structure they will seek to be. This applies equally to those whose vision is simply that they want to be the one giving all the orders, as to those who have a grand vision of how society should be structured for the benefit of all of its constituents; they all have a vision of how things should be that requires them to obtain a position of dominance to effect. As a result, power over others accrues to those who seek to have power over others, and can obtain the support of the established apparatus for selecting those in positions of authority; a military backed coup is an established method of selecting those in a position of authority, and is probably more faithful to the origins of civilized society than anyone is comfortable acknowledgeing. It definately is a more accurate description of the founding of the United States of America than you will find in the history books; it speaks very highly of the leadership of the American Revolutionary forces that they actively sought to establish a system of checks and balances upon themselves and their successors to prevent the development of a situation such as they had found themselves in, where there was sufficient popular support for the armed overthrow of the established government that it was successfully attempted. As it was, their original vision was nowhere near so broad as has been attributed to them in the years following. Yes, they established an elected representative leadership; read up on who initially was granted the franchise, and they won't seem quite so enlightened as they are made to appear. Trust me on this (DON"T! DO go read up on this!), if those same criteria were in place today, adjusted to reflect inflation, the vast majority of the current electorate would not be enfranchised.
On military support for those at the top of the structure. So long as the military is composed of a representave sampling of the population as a whole, it is unlikely to support the violent suppression of established civil liberties, if those civil liberties have the support of the population as a whole. If it ever comes to pass that the military is composed primarily of the adherents of one faction within society, it will become amenable to suppressing the civil liberties of those that faction disagrees with. This, in and itself, is an argument for a universal draft of all elegable citizens to serve time within the military. An all volunteer military is much more amenable to the long term cooption of its leadership positions by members of one faction than a military constituted upon universal conscription; while it can, and has, been accomplished in both situations, it is much more difficult to do with universal conscription, provided there is a means for promotion from the lowest ranks to the highest, such that it doesn't develope an effective caste system, where upper leadership is drawn from a pool that preselects for a desire to be in a position of military leadership and can afford the cost of attending a military academy. This is not to deny that service families have been the backbone of every military within the history of our race, but where you have service families, their values can, and most likely will, diverge from those of mainstream society; really, they have, or there wouldn't be distinct service families as opposed to the rest of the citizenry; just how those values differ from the majority populace is a crucial datum regarding their willingness to cooperate with an overthrow of the established civil authority, either by cooperating with those at the top not stepping down when they are supposed to, or assisting someone else in supplanting those currently at the top. Universal conscription is also a more effective method of exposing your citizenry to those of different economic, eductional, and cultural groups than any other, provided that military units are not comprised of heterogenous groups. By having your citizens serve alongside a representative sampling of the population as a whole they are given an exposure to those outside of their self-selecting socioeconomic polity, with, hopefully, beneficial results in regard to how they judge those members of the other socioeconomic sectors of society at large; of course, they may just have their pre-existing beliefs confirmed, but at least then they'll have some solid basis for their beliefs based upon personal experience in a semi-level playing field. At the very least, it should show them that there are hard workers and slackards within all segments of society. And it has to stick in the craw of those who volunteer for military service, for whatever reason, the disdain for this service expressed by a significant number in the liberal left. While it is very arguable that a significant percentage of the military actions we've been involved in since the Second World War didn't turn out all that well, that is not, ultimately, attributable to the military, but to their civilian overseers. The rules of engagement forced upon them, the sub-contracting to private firms things that should have been left to the military, the various constraints upon their actions that were purely political rather than operationally necessary. Changes to military hardware dictated by the economic benefit to a given Congressman's home district rather than what represents the best value in actual conflict. You do the best that you can, but it's hard to win a three legged race when you don't have a partner and you're an amputee.
On preferential treatment as a means of righting past socioeconomic wrongs. It will only be successful to the extent that those individuals who are the recipients of that preferential treatment demonstrate that they can do the job. Case in point, speaking from my personal experience with the negative results of preferential treatment established for this purpose. When I worked at the Chicago Public Library, the actual process of ordering the items to be purchased for our collections was outsourced; in other words, we still made all the decisions in regard to what was to be ordered, but teh actual process of contacting teh various publishers and book jobbers to order, tack, and pay for the items once received, was outsourced. When the Chicago City Council approved doing this, they added the stipulation that it had to be contracted to a minority-owned business within Chicago. Well, there weren't any minority-owned businesses within Chicago with experience in this area, and the firm that got the bid, we never successfully ordered a single item via them; this was in the 1990s, the Internet was in its infancy. They didn't answer the telephone number we were given to contact them, they didn't respond to our written letters. So, we relied upon the fall-back policy that thankfully had been approved; after three attempts on different days to contact them, we could go ahead and process the order ourselves. This is probably one of the worst examples that could be provided of the negative aspects of preferential treatment, in that someone who proved themselves unable to do the job was given the job purely because of legislated social engineering. If they prove themselves capable of fulfilling the requirements of the job on a day to day basis, I have no problems with preferential treatment as a route to eliminating the impact of past discrimination. Speaking purely as a manager, I'd prefer to get the applicant who will do the best job possible out of those applying for a given position, but so long as they discharge the listed job responsibilities, I'll go along with preferential treatment as a a method of helping people out of an economic situation forced upon their ancestors, where it negatively impacted their ability to get the background necessary to do the job; given the discrimination my father experienced, and in his case it was based upon his having his right leg amputated below the knee, I recognize the reality of what discrimination can do; dad was refused a promotion, and then requested to train the individual who got the job because he was the best qualified individual to train him in the responsibilities of the job, based upon the fact that he was an amputee. They said so to his face. It was an accounting firm. How does his missing the lower part of a leg impact his ability to do accounting, or to supervise others? Obviously it didn't, since they wanted him to train the individual who got the job. This was in the 1950s, the ADA would have prevented them from being that open about why they made their decision today; it still happens, but they have to be much more subtle about it. Dad wasn't having any of it, he quit then and there. Fortunately, there was a market for experienced accountants at the time, so he wasn't unemployed for long. What drove dad to where he quit wasn't that someone else got the job, but that a less qualified person got the job based upon non-rational discrimination, and they acknowledged that this was the case to his face, and then added insult to injury by asking him to train the person who actually got the job. My expereince, and my father's experience, is why my support for preferential treatment as social engineering has the caveat that they still have to be capable of doing the job; it does no one any good to be hired over someone else and then end up being fired because you can't actually fulfill the responsibilities of the position, and I have to say, again speaking as a former manager, that it's a lot harder to fire someone from within a group being granted preferential treatment than it is to fire someone not in such a group, because of the level of documentation required to withstand charges of discrimination; it's not enough to document that the specific individual isn't doing the job, you have to document how everyone in equivalent positions is doing to show that, in fact, they are the one doing the poorest job of all, and that it falls below the minimum acceptable performance levels, and that no one who is being retained falls below those levels; in an ideal world this level of documentation would exist as a matter of course, but the reality is that no one can afford the time and effort involved, no one is staffed at that level. I've seen it succesfully done once, at the Chicago Public Library. In that case it had a positive impact upon another worker who had been hired for similer reasons, but who was discharging his responsibilities in good order; his self-esteem went way up, because he truly internalized that if he wasn't doing the job, he'd have been fired; seeing this other chap get fired for not doing his job was the beginning of an incredible change as he realized that he really was valued for what he was doing, and he started actively improving a lot of things in his life. It was amazing to watch. It's been twenty years since I've had any contact with him, and I've forgotten his last name, but it's stuck in my mind how his realizing that he'd held onto his job through merit really turned his world view around. Which does point out the major problem with preferential treatment, no matter who is getting that preferential treatment, how the nagging question of if you really measure up has to wear at those who know they have received it and aren't sure they are truly worthy of the position they hold must be; of course, in general, the only ones that's going to bother are those who do measure up in the truly important things.
The other thing that impacts my feelings on the above matter is this. I'm a retired librarian. I'm a white male. For a very long time, in libraries, you had a greater number of female librarians than male librarians, yet the Library Director was always male. And he might not even have an MLS. Case in point, again at the Chicago Public Library, there was an individual who the City Powers That Be wanted as Library Director, who didn't have an MLS. Now, this wasn't going to fly, because Illinois State Law requires Public Library Directors have an MLS. So they hired someone else as Library Director, and created an assistant position for the guy they really wanted in the job, and gave him all the actual responsibilities; needless to say, paying for two top administrative positions rather than one loused up the Library budget big time. The guy was an ass. He didn't have the background for the job, and really fucked things up. I'm not going to name him, anyone really interested can do the research and find out. I will name his immediate successor, because she's now the Librarian of Congress, and did an absolutely bangup job during the time she was in charge at CPL; it was only for a couple of years, then she moved on to bigger and better things, but Carla Hayden is one sharp cookie, who impressed the hell out of me. She's the first female Librarian of Congress. She's the first African-American Librarian of Congress. She's the first Librarian of Congress in over sixty years to actually come from a background of working in libraries. Those of us who have had the experience of working for her, however indirectly (hey, I was an L2, which is the lowest supervisory Librarian position at CPL, I never had any direct interaction with her) are very, very pleased at this, because we all think she's done a great job. And if you look into her background, she's worked her way from being a front line Children's Librarian to where she is now on merit; while there may have been some preference at times, she always excelled at the job once she had it. Yes, she was appointed while Barack Obama was President, and she is friends with the Obama's, but she was also best qualified for the job amongst those being considered. Major caveat, she was able to do all of it on merit because her parents were well to do and she could afford to go to the good universities. So in her case, all being part of a "preference" group did was wipe out discrimination due to her being female and Black; once given a level playing field, she did it all on her own abilities. Which, ideally, is what preferential consideration as part of social engineering is supposed to do; give people the opportunity to show they've got what it takes while attempting to undo the impact of generations of deliberate discrimination, which, when it works, helps to prove that it was indeed discrimination rather than the discriminated upon group's innate lack of ability in that field, since, when given the chance, they got the job done.
Oy. I've been working on this for hours. As usual, it has wandered very far astray from where I started.
2017-10-28
A modest proposal for Copyright Revision
I just had an idea concerning copyright. I don't know if anyone would be happy with it, but here goes.
So long as the holder of the intellectual property rights keeps the item in print in a current format at a price such that it is accessable to the general public, they maintain their copyright. Forever. Hardcopy always counts as a current format. However, if they are not prepared to produce a quality digital version, or whatever is the current technological standard, and someone who is prepared to do so contacts them, they are required to negotiate a fair price for the format specific rights to the item concerned. If the entity producing the format specific edition ceases to provide it, the format specific rights, including the master copies for those versions, revert to the current intellectual property rights owner for the source item, unless said entity has, through failure to keep the item in print as specified below, lost their copyright, in which case the format specific edition becomes public domain; it does not become public domain so long as the holder of the rights to the format specific edition keeps it in print as specified below, even if the intellectual property rights holder losses their copyright through failure to maintain in print status. Similer clauses hold true in regard to foreign language editions, and adaptations into other formats not specifically mentioned or existant at this time. In short, so long as the intellectual property rights holder actively seeks to make a return on their investment, it remains theirs, provided they make arrangements with those prepared to transform the item into other formats that the intellectual property rights holder is not themselves interested in marketing the item in. If it remains available to the public, at a price that is considered fair given production costs and the need for a reasonable profit, and that they are making available general purpose editions, not just collectors editions, they retain copyright.
If they allow a five year period to pass with it out of print, they lose their copyright, permanently and irrevocably. It's gone, not theirs anymore, no saving throw, do not pass go, do not collect $200.00. It's now in the public domain. Permanently. That it is available in a format that they have contracted the rights away does not count as their keeping it in print, they have to be actively involved in keeping it before the public for sale. Actions taken on their behalf by their legal representatives if they are no longer functioning well enough to be actively involved do count towards their active participation.
Once in the public domain, anyone is permitted to produce it for sale, provided that a certain quality level is maintained; public domain does not mean trash is acceptable. Quality has to, at a minimum, match that of the general purpose editions produced by the intellectual property rights holder, in regards to formatting, legibility, viewability, listenability, etc., as appropriate depending upon the type of item. In other words, uncorrected ocr scans are not acceptable, they have to be proofed and formatted to match the original as closely as required to fulfill the purpose the original was created to meet. If illustrated in the original, the new version must be illustrated in a functionally identical fashion; functionally identical does not preclude different illustrations, but they must be identifiably the same subject matter, and where intended to convey instructional information, must be consistent with the original, with the exception that if the item is being updated to reflect changes in practice in the field involved, the illustrations must be updated to match the other revisions where the original illustrations would now provide misinformation concerning current practice; clearly, a facsimile reproduction is not a revision to current proactice, and any changes to illustrations should reflect the content of the original.
The five year period for allowing lapses of in print status is, in my mind, very reasonable; if they can't scrape up the funds to keep it in print after that long a break, they aren't going to. The major problem with current copyright is a) items just not being produced at all, yet still having copyright protection preventing anyone else from making them available, and 2) the demand for the item in formats compatable with the original in other media types not being met. Followed very closely by 3) being accessable to the general public at a reasonable price; I've had it up to here with items only being available in proprietary versions accessable only to those within Academia or a particular trade, or items where the publisher and author are both down for the count, no one has a clue who the current intellectual rights holder is or how to contact them, or where they just haven't bothered to keep the item in print yet refuse to license it to others at a reasonable price. If you want to maintain copyright, you have to make it available to anyone who requests access at a reasonable price; if you don't, your copyright is void, but so long as you do, you retain copyright; if Walt Disney, Inc., wants to maintain their copyright, they have to keep the item available, if they do that, they keep their copyright. If an informational database, such as EEBO 2, charging a per item access fee, provided it is within reason, is acceptable, so long as it is within the economic reach of those interested in the item; if this necesitates a sliding scale of access fees, so be it, provided the scale used passes review. If an article is cited in a source which is legally available, then access to that article by those reading the citing item is mandated. Since the reason for copyright is to insure the intellectual property rights holder a return on their investment, charging to access their intellectual property is not only allowed, but strongly encouraged; allowing free access declares it to be public domain, thank you for your donation to society; an exception would be granted to this if there is free access granted based upon a set criteria, such as being a current student, or retired on fixed or limited income, or a net income less than x. Making a stripped down or older version free does not void your copyright on the most recent complete version, as they are not functionally the same.
There is no minimum number of copies to be sold in any given time period; so long as it is available for purchase/access, at a reasonable price, you retain copyright; so long as there is no unmeet demand for the item, to make it clear, you retain copyright if it is kept available for any demand that may develop; if you keep it in print, but no one is buying, and it's not because you have priced it out of their range, demand has clearly been met, so you maintain copyright; clearly, if this goes on for a while, and you can't foresee demand picking back up within a certain period of time, you might want to consider allowing your copyright to lapse so you don't have to maintain access no one is using; again, copyright is to insure a return on your investment, when it costs more to maintain copyright than you actually recieve via access charges, why maintain your copyright?
If you initially make the item available for free, thus putting it in the public domain, but at a later date produce a "value added" edition, copyright is established for the value added edition only. So, yes, if you come out with a collector's edition, the collector's edition will be copyright to you, even if the geneal edition's copyright has lapsed or been willingly released. Just for so long as you keep it in print, of course.
Obviously, this would have some tricky implementation stuff. Defining what was a reasonable price for the access granted to the item would be a source of much contention, but since the idea of copyright is to insure a return on your investment, while at the same time making the item available to those who have a use for it, a compromise between maximizing the return on your investment and access to all who have need of your creation is mandated; no price gouging, while at the same time, a non-negligable amount over your costs of production and marketting/distribution. But I really think something like this would make a reasonable compromise between the current system of copyright covering items that have been out of print for decades, and the desire on the part of intellectual rights holders to maintain copyright for as long as possible; those who exercise those rights, keep them, those who don't, loose them; exercising the rights means making the item available to those interested in it at a price they can afford; it's arguable that whem debating what someone can afford, their spending habits should be reviewed to see if they are being good stewards of their resources; if they are not, why should the intellectual property rights holder be made to suffer? And yes, intellectual property rights can be sold, or inherited, or otherwise transfered, so long as access is maintained to any who have an interest in the item.
Kinda radical, kinda conservative. That's me, in a nutshell.
So long as the holder of the intellectual property rights keeps the item in print in a current format at a price such that it is accessable to the general public, they maintain their copyright. Forever. Hardcopy always counts as a current format. However, if they are not prepared to produce a quality digital version, or whatever is the current technological standard, and someone who is prepared to do so contacts them, they are required to negotiate a fair price for the format specific rights to the item concerned. If the entity producing the format specific edition ceases to provide it, the format specific rights, including the master copies for those versions, revert to the current intellectual property rights owner for the source item, unless said entity has, through failure to keep the item in print as specified below, lost their copyright, in which case the format specific edition becomes public domain; it does not become public domain so long as the holder of the rights to the format specific edition keeps it in print as specified below, even if the intellectual property rights holder losses their copyright through failure to maintain in print status. Similer clauses hold true in regard to foreign language editions, and adaptations into other formats not specifically mentioned or existant at this time. In short, so long as the intellectual property rights holder actively seeks to make a return on their investment, it remains theirs, provided they make arrangements with those prepared to transform the item into other formats that the intellectual property rights holder is not themselves interested in marketing the item in. If it remains available to the public, at a price that is considered fair given production costs and the need for a reasonable profit, and that they are making available general purpose editions, not just collectors editions, they retain copyright.
If they allow a five year period to pass with it out of print, they lose their copyright, permanently and irrevocably. It's gone, not theirs anymore, no saving throw, do not pass go, do not collect $200.00. It's now in the public domain. Permanently. That it is available in a format that they have contracted the rights away does not count as their keeping it in print, they have to be actively involved in keeping it before the public for sale. Actions taken on their behalf by their legal representatives if they are no longer functioning well enough to be actively involved do count towards their active participation.
Once in the public domain, anyone is permitted to produce it for sale, provided that a certain quality level is maintained; public domain does not mean trash is acceptable. Quality has to, at a minimum, match that of the general purpose editions produced by the intellectual property rights holder, in regards to formatting, legibility, viewability, listenability, etc., as appropriate depending upon the type of item. In other words, uncorrected ocr scans are not acceptable, they have to be proofed and formatted to match the original as closely as required to fulfill the purpose the original was created to meet. If illustrated in the original, the new version must be illustrated in a functionally identical fashion; functionally identical does not preclude different illustrations, but they must be identifiably the same subject matter, and where intended to convey instructional information, must be consistent with the original, with the exception that if the item is being updated to reflect changes in practice in the field involved, the illustrations must be updated to match the other revisions where the original illustrations would now provide misinformation concerning current practice; clearly, a facsimile reproduction is not a revision to current proactice, and any changes to illustrations should reflect the content of the original.
The five year period for allowing lapses of in print status is, in my mind, very reasonable; if they can't scrape up the funds to keep it in print after that long a break, they aren't going to. The major problem with current copyright is a) items just not being produced at all, yet still having copyright protection preventing anyone else from making them available, and 2) the demand for the item in formats compatable with the original in other media types not being met. Followed very closely by 3) being accessable to the general public at a reasonable price; I've had it up to here with items only being available in proprietary versions accessable only to those within Academia or a particular trade, or items where the publisher and author are both down for the count, no one has a clue who the current intellectual rights holder is or how to contact them, or where they just haven't bothered to keep the item in print yet refuse to license it to others at a reasonable price. If you want to maintain copyright, you have to make it available to anyone who requests access at a reasonable price; if you don't, your copyright is void, but so long as you do, you retain copyright; if Walt Disney, Inc., wants to maintain their copyright, they have to keep the item available, if they do that, they keep their copyright. If an informational database, such as EEBO 2, charging a per item access fee, provided it is within reason, is acceptable, so long as it is within the economic reach of those interested in the item; if this necesitates a sliding scale of access fees, so be it, provided the scale used passes review. If an article is cited in a source which is legally available, then access to that article by those reading the citing item is mandated. Since the reason for copyright is to insure the intellectual property rights holder a return on their investment, charging to access their intellectual property is not only allowed, but strongly encouraged; allowing free access declares it to be public domain, thank you for your donation to society; an exception would be granted to this if there is free access granted based upon a set criteria, such as being a current student, or retired on fixed or limited income, or a net income less than x. Making a stripped down or older version free does not void your copyright on the most recent complete version, as they are not functionally the same.
There is no minimum number of copies to be sold in any given time period; so long as it is available for purchase/access, at a reasonable price, you retain copyright; so long as there is no unmeet demand for the item, to make it clear, you retain copyright if it is kept available for any demand that may develop; if you keep it in print, but no one is buying, and it's not because you have priced it out of their range, demand has clearly been met, so you maintain copyright; clearly, if this goes on for a while, and you can't foresee demand picking back up within a certain period of time, you might want to consider allowing your copyright to lapse so you don't have to maintain access no one is using; again, copyright is to insure a return on your investment, when it costs more to maintain copyright than you actually recieve via access charges, why maintain your copyright?
If you initially make the item available for free, thus putting it in the public domain, but at a later date produce a "value added" edition, copyright is established for the value added edition only. So, yes, if you come out with a collector's edition, the collector's edition will be copyright to you, even if the geneal edition's copyright has lapsed or been willingly released. Just for so long as you keep it in print, of course.
Obviously, this would have some tricky implementation stuff. Defining what was a reasonable price for the access granted to the item would be a source of much contention, but since the idea of copyright is to insure a return on your investment, while at the same time making the item available to those who have a use for it, a compromise between maximizing the return on your investment and access to all who have need of your creation is mandated; no price gouging, while at the same time, a non-negligable amount over your costs of production and marketting/distribution. But I really think something like this would make a reasonable compromise between the current system of copyright covering items that have been out of print for decades, and the desire on the part of intellectual rights holders to maintain copyright for as long as possible; those who exercise those rights, keep them, those who don't, loose them; exercising the rights means making the item available to those interested in it at a price they can afford; it's arguable that whem debating what someone can afford, their spending habits should be reviewed to see if they are being good stewards of their resources; if they are not, why should the intellectual property rights holder be made to suffer? And yes, intellectual property rights can be sold, or inherited, or otherwise transfered, so long as access is maintained to any who have an interest in the item.
Kinda radical, kinda conservative. That's me, in a nutshell.
2017-09-17
The Son of More Thoughts on Transcription
In my first post I discussed a philosophy of Transcription. In my second, the creation of a master font document to assist in character recognition, and the concept of initially transcribing into a font that matches the source document, for ease of comparing your initial transcription with the source to see if the individual characters match. In this post I'm going to talk about getting access to your source document.
There is one assumption I'm making, and that is that you are using a desktop computer for this purpose. I can envision using a laptop, but anything without a physical keyboard distinct from the display is right out.
Your source document will come in one of three basic forms. 1) Digitized images of the original, 2) a hard copy of the original; this may be a physical book, a photocopy of the document, or, if you are fortunate enough to be working with the owner of the original document, the original document itself. In the case of working with the original document itself, odds are very good that you will be doing this where they store it, and unless they are providing you with access to a work station, you will be using a laptop. 3) Sound recordings. Sound recordings are a whole nother kettle of fish, if they aren't a sound file, because you will need to have the equipment to play back the media they are recorded on. Well, even if they are a sound file, they may be on an outdated storage format, such as floppy disks, and in an outdated file format. In which case you would need access to a computer of the appropriate vintage, with the appropriate audio software. As time passes, this is going to become harder and harder to do; I no longer possess a computer with floppy drives of any kind that still works, and it's been quite some time since I had access to anything capable of running a pre-Windows 95 program. Anyway, if you are dealing with sound recordings that aren't digitized audio files, you will need the appropriate equipment to play them. I'm not going to go into what all this might entail, at least not in this post, just take my word for it that finding the equipment to playback non-digitized audio recordings may be quite the adventure, if it doesn't come provided with access to the sound recordings themselves. However, you would be surprised what equipment is still available, if you hunt around a bit; the online marketplace has made obtaining obsolescent equipment much easier, as individuals who couldn't quite bear to just throw their old equipment away now have a means of finding it a new home, and those who made a business out of obtaining obsolescent equipment from those wanting to get rid of it (heck, sometimes they even got paid to take it away!) for resale to those who needed that equipment to access obsolescent media now have it much better when it comes to outreach to their prospective customers. And, there are those who make a business out of converting audio between different storage media; for a price, you send them your outdated media, they'll send you back the contents on current media. This holds true for all data types, not just audio; if you are willing to let them retain a copy of the converted data, and distribute it as they wish (including selling copies), they might be willing to arrange a lower price, but it would need to be something marketable that isn't under someone else's copyright.
Digitized images of the original: In short, a computer data file. Hopefully, this will have been created recently enough that it is in a current file format, and current storage media. If a non-current file format, you will need to either obtain conversion software so you can convert it to a modern file type, or software capable of displaying the contents of that file type. If it's not a current storage media, we're back to the problem outlined with audio recordings, of needing to obtain the equipment necessary to read the storage media and file type. For my purposes in this post, I'm going to pretend that your source image is in a current file format, stored on modern equipment, such that you can view it on your main computer's monitor. In some cases you may be allowed to download the images to your own storage media, in other cases the source site may not allow downloading (and installed the appropriate scripts to disable mouse right -clicks from pulling up a context menu), and you will need to keep an active browser window open to their site. Of course, their not allowing you to download a copy of the image should raise the question of whether you have their permission to create a transcript of the document. If it is a unique document, you really need to contact them to seek their permission to create a transcript from it; while the original document may be out of copyright, odds are real good that the image they won't let you download is in copyright, and modifying the image, which includes transcribing the contents, requires their permission. In writing. One can argue fair use for transcribing a small portion of the information contained in the image, enough for a quote in another document, but a complete transcription is right out without their permission. If they allow you to download the image, but require permission to use the image in a publication, you will still need to contact them about distributing your transcription in any form. If it is not a unique document, things get a little bit iffy. But only a little bit. Sure the original is not unique, but do you have physical access to any of the other physical copies? Has anyone else made images of one of those copies available without constraints placed upon their use? If the answer to those questions is No, then you still need to get their permission. If the answer to either of those questions is Yes, then that's what you need to do to access the document if you don't want to contact the image producer about producing a transcript from their image.
[Note: A bit tardy, but I've just emailed the Lord Collection to request permission to make transcriptions from their .pdfs. As with my article on Link Rot, I must practice what I preach.][2017 09 18: Got an email back, it's cool with them. Yay!]
There are online repositories of digitized documents that make their holdings available without constraint, other than not selling what you obtain from them; derivative works, your call, but there needs to be substantive changes made, such as transcribing them into a modern typeface, annotating them, translating them into another language, things that take considerable time and effort, such that you have a real claim on the resulting document. Google Books, the Internet Archive, any agency of the United States Government, in general any State Government agency, Project Gutenberg, to name a few.
Accessing the original document in hard copy.
If it is a published work, now out of copyright, and you own a copy of it in hard copy, you are set, good to go. I would recommend investing in a good document holder, appropriate to the hard copy format, to hold the document open and well displayed while you work from it.
If you do not own a copy of the work, you may be able to borrow a copy via your local library; while they may not have a copy themselves, they could try to borrow it from another library that does, through InterLibrary Loan (ILL). There is a caveat to this, and that is, the less common the item, the less likely that anyone who still has it will lend it out. I worked in the Bibliographic and Interlibrary Loan Center of the Chicago Public Library for three years, I know whereof I speak.
If you don't own a copy, and can't borrow a copy, you will have to go to where a copy is kept. First, you have to find out where a copy is held. For published works, OCLC WorldCat is the best place to start for holdings within the USA, as it is drawn from the cataloging database that OCLC maintains of materials for which they have bibliographic records, and they are the major, although not the only, cataloging database service provider in North America. Outside of North America their coverage is not very good. OCLC has been in operation since 1967, and by now, most libraries in North America have substantially completed their retrospective conversion projects; retrospective conversion is a fancy term for taking the information from your physical card catalog and converting it into information in an electronic database, typically available via the library's online catalog. Pretty much, the only things that haven't been converted are items unique to a given collection, where they haven't been able to afford the time of an original item cataloger to create the bibliographic record. Original cataloging is a lot harder than copy cataloging; copy catalogers have to be very careful, but what they are doing is searching the existing cataloging records for one which matches the physical description of the item in their collection; if they find one, they attach their holdings code to the record, download the record for use in their online catalog, and proceed on to the next item. If they can't find a matching record, they record that fact in a local record of some kind, and move on to the next item. The record of items for which a matching bibliographic record wasn't found will then be accessed by an original item cataloger, when they can afford to hire one; note that point, when they can afford to hire one. Pretty much all libraries of any size have a copy cataloger on staff, to handle their ongoing acquisitions. It may not be a dedicated copy cataloger, but someone who does it as part of their duties; my sister, when she was the Children's Librarian in Klamath Falls, Oregon, did the copy cataloging for the Children's Library as part of her duties. But original cataloging is much more time consuming, and requires a very analytical, detail oriented mind set; they have to create a bibliographic record that accurately describes the item in their possession such that it is clear what they have, and how the edition of the document in their possession differs from all other editions of that document. Having worked in ILL for three years in one of the largest public library systems in North America, I have a much better understanding of just how important that is than I did previously. Different editions are just that, different. They differ in formatting of the information contained, the actual information contained in the work can differ between different editions; like, duh, why else would they call it a different edition? Different printings of the same edition can vary in appearance. There are all sorts of reasons why a researcher will need access to not just a specific work, but a specific printing of a specific edition. If you are looking at travelling thousands of miles to do your research, you want to be certain before you pack your bags that the copy of the item held by the repository you are going to visit matches the item you are seeking to research. So good, detailed, anal retentive original cataloging is not a luxury, it is mandatory, and people capable of that quality of work cost. Collections greater than a certain size, who have funding adequate to their needs, can afford original catalogers. Smaller collections, and specialized collections, may not be able to afford to have an original item cataloger on staff permanently. What they do is 1) hope their item isn't as unique as they fear, and a cataloging record will be input by another institution that matches the item in their collection, and 2) seek outside funding in addition to their normal funding to hire a project cataloger, someone who will focus all their efforts on cataloging the items unique to their collection, for the duration of their funding. They don't always call these individuals catalogers, sometimes they are called archivists; archivists focus on non-published items such as personal and corporate papers and records, but the basic concept is the same, the creation of entry points to the holdings of the library/archive, such that researchers can become aware of what they have that is unique to that collection, so people will use the materials and justify the expense of preserving them; researchers are also a revenue source, while publicly funded repositories are usually free to access in person, privately funded collections frequently charge for admission to their collections, as a means of supplementing their usually inadequate funding; they are also more likely to charge publication fees for use of the information unique to their collection in publications, said fees generally on a sliding scale based upon expected number of individuals who will access that publication.
And with that last, I've advanced to unique items. Items that are unique to a given collection, because few if any copies were made. While WorldCat's coverage in this area is improving, that's damning with faint praise. This is where you need to have some reason to think that a given collection would have resources relating to your research, before you can search their holdings information. Thankfully, as these collections are able to obtain funding for inventorying of their unique holdings, more and more information about these collections is becoming available via web searches. Also, there are a growing number of organizations such as Archives West, which acts as a portal to the specialized collections of a great many collections in the Greater Pacific Northwest, allowing you to use their front end search software to search the a number of specialized collections at once; caveat, due to the variety of materials in these collections, they don't all use the same terminology in their collection descriptions, you need to try a number of searches using terms tangential to each other to maximize the chances of finding that they have materials related to your research.
Hm. Shifted from transcription to research. Well, looking for a collection that holds a copy of the fairly unique item you want to transcribe is research. And, I have to admit, that's how I've tracked down the items I've been transcribing, searching on the web for items related to my area of interest; I didn't start out looking for Vincentio Saviolo his Practise in Two Bookes, I was looking for historical fencing manuals, and stumbled across the Raymond J. Lord Collection by purest chance. It was only afterwards that I located the various HEMA link repositories that directed there. I mean, the University of Massachusetts does not immediately spring to mind as an institution which would have a collection of historical European fighting manuals. Once you find out about their academic programs, not so surprising.
Well, I did, and didn't, cover what I intended to in this post. It certainly isn't what I'd been thinking about earlier today, which was the physical layout of your transcription area. But it did cover something important; before you can transcribe, you need to have something to transcribe.
It's past time for lunch.
Post this Puppy!
Edit 2017 09 18: Permission received from the Lord Collection to make the transcriptions from their .pdfs.
There is one assumption I'm making, and that is that you are using a desktop computer for this purpose. I can envision using a laptop, but anything without a physical keyboard distinct from the display is right out.
Your source document will come in one of three basic forms. 1) Digitized images of the original, 2) a hard copy of the original; this may be a physical book, a photocopy of the document, or, if you are fortunate enough to be working with the owner of the original document, the original document itself. In the case of working with the original document itself, odds are very good that you will be doing this where they store it, and unless they are providing you with access to a work station, you will be using a laptop. 3) Sound recordings. Sound recordings are a whole nother kettle of fish, if they aren't a sound file, because you will need to have the equipment to play back the media they are recorded on. Well, even if they are a sound file, they may be on an outdated storage format, such as floppy disks, and in an outdated file format. In which case you would need access to a computer of the appropriate vintage, with the appropriate audio software. As time passes, this is going to become harder and harder to do; I no longer possess a computer with floppy drives of any kind that still works, and it's been quite some time since I had access to anything capable of running a pre-Windows 95 program. Anyway, if you are dealing with sound recordings that aren't digitized audio files, you will need the appropriate equipment to play them. I'm not going to go into what all this might entail, at least not in this post, just take my word for it that finding the equipment to playback non-digitized audio recordings may be quite the adventure, if it doesn't come provided with access to the sound recordings themselves. However, you would be surprised what equipment is still available, if you hunt around a bit; the online marketplace has made obtaining obsolescent equipment much easier, as individuals who couldn't quite bear to just throw their old equipment away now have a means of finding it a new home, and those who made a business out of obtaining obsolescent equipment from those wanting to get rid of it (heck, sometimes they even got paid to take it away!) for resale to those who needed that equipment to access obsolescent media now have it much better when it comes to outreach to their prospective customers. And, there are those who make a business out of converting audio between different storage media; for a price, you send them your outdated media, they'll send you back the contents on current media. This holds true for all data types, not just audio; if you are willing to let them retain a copy of the converted data, and distribute it as they wish (including selling copies), they might be willing to arrange a lower price, but it would need to be something marketable that isn't under someone else's copyright.
Digitized images of the original: In short, a computer data file. Hopefully, this will have been created recently enough that it is in a current file format, and current storage media. If a non-current file format, you will need to either obtain conversion software so you can convert it to a modern file type, or software capable of displaying the contents of that file type. If it's not a current storage media, we're back to the problem outlined with audio recordings, of needing to obtain the equipment necessary to read the storage media and file type. For my purposes in this post, I'm going to pretend that your source image is in a current file format, stored on modern equipment, such that you can view it on your main computer's monitor. In some cases you may be allowed to download the images to your own storage media, in other cases the source site may not allow downloading (and installed the appropriate scripts to disable mouse right -clicks from pulling up a context menu), and you will need to keep an active browser window open to their site. Of course, their not allowing you to download a copy of the image should raise the question of whether you have their permission to create a transcript of the document. If it is a unique document, you really need to contact them to seek their permission to create a transcript from it; while the original document may be out of copyright, odds are real good that the image they won't let you download is in copyright, and modifying the image, which includes transcribing the contents, requires their permission. In writing. One can argue fair use for transcribing a small portion of the information contained in the image, enough for a quote in another document, but a complete transcription is right out without their permission. If they allow you to download the image, but require permission to use the image in a publication, you will still need to contact them about distributing your transcription in any form. If it is not a unique document, things get a little bit iffy. But only a little bit. Sure the original is not unique, but do you have physical access to any of the other physical copies? Has anyone else made images of one of those copies available without constraints placed upon their use? If the answer to those questions is No, then you still need to get their permission. If the answer to either of those questions is Yes, then that's what you need to do to access the document if you don't want to contact the image producer about producing a transcript from their image.
[Note: A bit tardy, but I've just emailed the Lord Collection to request permission to make transcriptions from their .pdfs. As with my article on Link Rot, I must practice what I preach.][2017 09 18: Got an email back, it's cool with them. Yay!]
There are online repositories of digitized documents that make their holdings available without constraint, other than not selling what you obtain from them; derivative works, your call, but there needs to be substantive changes made, such as transcribing them into a modern typeface, annotating them, translating them into another language, things that take considerable time and effort, such that you have a real claim on the resulting document. Google Books, the Internet Archive, any agency of the United States Government, in general any State Government agency, Project Gutenberg, to name a few.
Accessing the original document in hard copy.
If it is a published work, now out of copyright, and you own a copy of it in hard copy, you are set, good to go. I would recommend investing in a good document holder, appropriate to the hard copy format, to hold the document open and well displayed while you work from it.
If you do not own a copy of the work, you may be able to borrow a copy via your local library; while they may not have a copy themselves, they could try to borrow it from another library that does, through InterLibrary Loan (ILL). There is a caveat to this, and that is, the less common the item, the less likely that anyone who still has it will lend it out. I worked in the Bibliographic and Interlibrary Loan Center of the Chicago Public Library for three years, I know whereof I speak.
If you don't own a copy, and can't borrow a copy, you will have to go to where a copy is kept. First, you have to find out where a copy is held. For published works, OCLC WorldCat is the best place to start for holdings within the USA, as it is drawn from the cataloging database that OCLC maintains of materials for which they have bibliographic records, and they are the major, although not the only, cataloging database service provider in North America. Outside of North America their coverage is not very good. OCLC has been in operation since 1967, and by now, most libraries in North America have substantially completed their retrospective conversion projects; retrospective conversion is a fancy term for taking the information from your physical card catalog and converting it into information in an electronic database, typically available via the library's online catalog. Pretty much, the only things that haven't been converted are items unique to a given collection, where they haven't been able to afford the time of an original item cataloger to create the bibliographic record. Original cataloging is a lot harder than copy cataloging; copy catalogers have to be very careful, but what they are doing is searching the existing cataloging records for one which matches the physical description of the item in their collection; if they find one, they attach their holdings code to the record, download the record for use in their online catalog, and proceed on to the next item. If they can't find a matching record, they record that fact in a local record of some kind, and move on to the next item. The record of items for which a matching bibliographic record wasn't found will then be accessed by an original item cataloger, when they can afford to hire one; note that point, when they can afford to hire one. Pretty much all libraries of any size have a copy cataloger on staff, to handle their ongoing acquisitions. It may not be a dedicated copy cataloger, but someone who does it as part of their duties; my sister, when she was the Children's Librarian in Klamath Falls, Oregon, did the copy cataloging for the Children's Library as part of her duties. But original cataloging is much more time consuming, and requires a very analytical, detail oriented mind set; they have to create a bibliographic record that accurately describes the item in their possession such that it is clear what they have, and how the edition of the document in their possession differs from all other editions of that document. Having worked in ILL for three years in one of the largest public library systems in North America, I have a much better understanding of just how important that is than I did previously. Different editions are just that, different. They differ in formatting of the information contained, the actual information contained in the work can differ between different editions; like, duh, why else would they call it a different edition? Different printings of the same edition can vary in appearance. There are all sorts of reasons why a researcher will need access to not just a specific work, but a specific printing of a specific edition. If you are looking at travelling thousands of miles to do your research, you want to be certain before you pack your bags that the copy of the item held by the repository you are going to visit matches the item you are seeking to research. So good, detailed, anal retentive original cataloging is not a luxury, it is mandatory, and people capable of that quality of work cost. Collections greater than a certain size, who have funding adequate to their needs, can afford original catalogers. Smaller collections, and specialized collections, may not be able to afford to have an original item cataloger on staff permanently. What they do is 1) hope their item isn't as unique as they fear, and a cataloging record will be input by another institution that matches the item in their collection, and 2) seek outside funding in addition to their normal funding to hire a project cataloger, someone who will focus all their efforts on cataloging the items unique to their collection, for the duration of their funding. They don't always call these individuals catalogers, sometimes they are called archivists; archivists focus on non-published items such as personal and corporate papers and records, but the basic concept is the same, the creation of entry points to the holdings of the library/archive, such that researchers can become aware of what they have that is unique to that collection, so people will use the materials and justify the expense of preserving them; researchers are also a revenue source, while publicly funded repositories are usually free to access in person, privately funded collections frequently charge for admission to their collections, as a means of supplementing their usually inadequate funding; they are also more likely to charge publication fees for use of the information unique to their collection in publications, said fees generally on a sliding scale based upon expected number of individuals who will access that publication.
And with that last, I've advanced to unique items. Items that are unique to a given collection, because few if any copies were made. While WorldCat's coverage in this area is improving, that's damning with faint praise. This is where you need to have some reason to think that a given collection would have resources relating to your research, before you can search their holdings information. Thankfully, as these collections are able to obtain funding for inventorying of their unique holdings, more and more information about these collections is becoming available via web searches. Also, there are a growing number of organizations such as Archives West, which acts as a portal to the specialized collections of a great many collections in the Greater Pacific Northwest, allowing you to use their front end search software to search the a number of specialized collections at once; caveat, due to the variety of materials in these collections, they don't all use the same terminology in their collection descriptions, you need to try a number of searches using terms tangential to each other to maximize the chances of finding that they have materials related to your research.
Hm. Shifted from transcription to research. Well, looking for a collection that holds a copy of the fairly unique item you want to transcribe is research. And, I have to admit, that's how I've tracked down the items I've been transcribing, searching on the web for items related to my area of interest; I didn't start out looking for Vincentio Saviolo his Practise in Two Bookes, I was looking for historical fencing manuals, and stumbled across the Raymond J. Lord Collection by purest chance. It was only afterwards that I located the various HEMA link repositories that directed there. I mean, the University of Massachusetts does not immediately spring to mind as an institution which would have a collection of historical European fighting manuals. Once you find out about their academic programs, not so surprising.
Well, I did, and didn't, cover what I intended to in this post. It certainly isn't what I'd been thinking about earlier today, which was the physical layout of your transcription area. But it did cover something important; before you can transcribe, you need to have something to transcribe.
It's past time for lunch.
Post this Puppy!
Edit 2017 09 18: Permission received from the Lord Collection to make the transcriptions from their .pdfs.
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