"Have all the brewing records in the London Metropolitan Archives been scanned."
It was well meant, but I couldn't help laughing.
Then realised it wasn't a laughing matter. I've taken a few snapshots, but the vast majority of the pages are unrecorded. There are all sorts of ways they could be damaged or lost. What a waste.
There's a huge resource out there, in a highly flammble, rottable, floodable, wormable form. It needs to be backed up.
No way I can do that by myself.
Here's the idea: a community scanning project. Anyone can take part. Scan brewing records and add them to a freely accessible database.
This is the best bit: get beer as a reward.
That's if brewers are willing to join in. Give beer, save history.
Who's in?
There's something in this. I'll email you when I get chance with some thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThere are some great digital scholarship crowdsourcing projects based in and around London (Transcribe Bentham at UCL is one example) - they may have some advice as far as setup and software. There are a fair few underemployed archivists out there who can help with scanning and metadata standards advice (says this formerly underemployed archivist).
ReplyDeleteI would be more inclined to have a data sharing club. I've had too much freeloading on my research and writing and editing. Not too much interested in open source given the issues with the community concept.
ReplyDeleteI never thought my niche passions for beer and metadata would meet!
ReplyDeleteIndeed, you never know what may happen to an archive: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7921988.stm
ReplyDelete