http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-smithsonian-works-to-digitize-millions-of-documents-1410464327
assuming real-deal experts (not interns) at the Smithsonian vet the crowdsourced work, this seems
like a good idea and will likely get a bunch of in-depth knowledge out into the public domain via
the interwebs. Just in the field of recording techniques and audio-recording history, I have noticed
that, as more arcane knowledge gets within reach of a Google search (for instance, scans of old
audio magazines, equipment manuals, schematics and first-person accounts), people can now try
"retro" or "authentic analog" techniques without making all the mistakes of yore. Whether they avail
themselves to the now readily-available store of knowledge is a different matter. It seems to me
that efforts like Smithsonians may allow scientists, especially naturalists, to avoid having to
re-catalog obscure animals and re-study behaviors already known but the old research was "forgotten"
because it was buried in journals and obscure texts hidden in phyiscal archives. I'm too
life-experienced to believe in the Internet-Utopia vision of a "New Universal Alexandria Library,"
but projects like this one at the Smithsonian seem to get us closer.
ARSC Member archives -- thing about your collections of "papers" in your files. Could they be
transcribed in this manner, within the confines of your budgets and workflows?
-- Tom Fine
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