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Hello fellows and friends,

First let me remind you that you do not need any special software to view
American Memory maps and newspapers and the zoom utility inside the browser
window still works as it always has.

That said, you may or may not have noticed that Lizardtech no longer has
the download file for the stand-alone viewer for MrSID on its
site.  (Huh?  see <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amviewer.html#map>.)

Here's the scoop.  Although the stand-alone viewer works fine with American
Memory SID files (we use the "old" flavor), it does not work with some
other sites' newer SID files.  The ExpressVIEW Browser Plug-In works with
the old and new SID files and will let you do the slider-zooming-magic
you've seen us demonstrate with the stand-alone viewer.  But there's a
catch.  Once you install this plug-in, your browser will open the file when
you click on the "download MrSID image" link.  If you really want to
download the whole file to your hard disk, download fromt he LINK ...
right-click (PC) or click and hold (MAC) on the link and then choose "save
target as" (IE) or "save link target as" (NN) and save the file.  BTW, this
is also a great technique for saving TIFF, audio, and video files to your
local computer for later use. (How? see the bottom of
<http://memory.loc.gov/learn/start/tech/printsav.html>.)

The ExpressVIEW Browser Plug-In does not have a SID to TIFF converter
utility (needed if you want to print whole map or newspaper pages).  The
Lizardtech website has a stand-alone utility, but I understand its "how to
use" instructions could be better.  Staff in the LC's Geography & Map
Division are working on something here...more later.

Please be patient with this.  As alternative to the above paragraph, we are
hoping to get permission to make the MrSID Stand-Alone viewer (for PC and
MAC) available from American Memory, along with the user guides, however
neither Lizardtech nor LC is likely to provide technical support (except a
little Ask A Librarian help).  The good news is that I've never seen the
software cause problems for anybody.

Feel free to email me off-list if you have questions/comments or a MrSID
emergency to [log in to unmask] or via the AskALibrarian service here:
<http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-memory.html>.

One other thing: although we don't have it in writing, I have heard that
the Lizardtech people do not mind if people share existing copies of the
stand-alone viewer with others, as long as it is clear that the product is
no-longer supported.

Betty

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    Elizabeth L. Brown
    Digital Reference Specialist
    Library of Congress, Washington, DC  20540-4604
    [log in to unmask]                telephone: 202/707-2235

    Library of Congress American Memory Home Page:
    http://memory.loc.gov/
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