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From: Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> > For the record collector, does this preview a time when we can > put our scratched or poorly pressed records on a scanner, grab > an image and then use software to "play" the groove[?] Back in 1970 when I was researching for my dissertation, to save money on photocopying I photographed the thousands of pages of research material I needed and processed about 25 rolls a night so I could re-load the cartridges. With a non-automatic Pentax SLR I was making my own microfilm, getting my research done faster by saving hundreds of hours of tedious note-writing by hand. At the same time I was re-recording ETs real-time that took many hundreds of hours. I opined to many people that it would be great if I could photograph the discs and later play the films like I could later read my microfilms. Several years later during the planing stages of the Rigler-Deutsch Record Index, the archivists demonstrated at several ARSC conference the idea and the progress made in designing a special camera to photograph the labels and then the entire record and use these microfilms for the computer data entry. The camera took several years to design. I IMPLORED them to use ring lighting around the lens to light the disc evenly in case technology would be developed to get the sound out of these fine-grain photos. They wouldn't consider it and didn't do it, and so the photographs of 700,000 pre-microgroove discs have light-wedges on all of them. DAMN. I could say it is another case of a team of professional trained archivists not listening to a more experienced amateur, but I won't. Mike Biel [log in to unmask]