YOW! I just looked at this Dallas Age of Steam document referenced in another thread, and it is classic example of how not to go. It is a modern, professionally produced glossy document, and they are distributing it on the web as a set of jpeg images!

This is a classic best application for Adobe PDF, but they did not do it.

By the way, 0-6-0 #7 looks good, painted and re-assembled, and they have organized their collection as representative train types. Nice job there.

I just found the Western Railway Museum's collection database. It is a FileMaker database operating in instant web publishing mode. Good job!

My $0.02 -

I really support the PDF format. I think if anyone is willing to go to the extent of digitizing a library of information, they're going to want to do it right, and make it usable by a large audience. Taking a little time to learn how PDF's work, and learn the software that creates them (The Adobe line of products being the first choice, since they are the folks who created the PDF standard in the first place) will go a long way to generating a quality archive.

You can generate a PDF for a variety of uses, whether it needs to be press-ready (high quality, large file size) or web/reference-ready (lower quality, small file). You can also set a variety of security options to prevent tampering with the document, even as far as restricting the ability to select and copy text/pictures/etc. (Or, maybe you want to allow that...)

Text in a PDF is text, not a picture, unless it was scanned as a picture and not with OCR. Fonts are usually embedded, and will always print at the highest quality your printer can deliver. Pictures vary depending on what type of artwork they are.

Bitmapped pictures and photos (.JPEG, .TIFF, .BMP, etc.) are sized and compressed to a specific resolution in the PDF. If my PDF is press-ready, then the pictures may be saved at a resolution of 300 DPI or higher. If it is merely a web-ready proof to have the boss check for general appearance and errors, then it's usually 72 DPI with a lot of JPEG compression applied so that it doesn't take forever to e-mail to him. Applications that have good PDF support will allow you to choose a variety of resolution and compression options.

If you must scan something technical and go the route of high-resolution bitmap images, try to stick to .TIFF or .JPEG. A note about compression: JPEG compression is lossy. That means it degrades the quality of the image, and there's no going back without the original. At very high resolutions (400-600 DPI for full color and gray scale, 1200+ DPI for technical drawings and other line art) you probably won't notice this and your files will be much smaller. The TIFF format has changed over the years to allow for compression that does not degrade the quality of the image. I've noticed file sizes are reduced to an average of 25 to 50 percent of their original size when the compression is applied.

Vectored line art (.EPS, .DWG, .DXF, .SVG, etc.) is scalable (meaning, I can enlarge it to the size of a freeway billboard and it won't look "chunky" or pixelated), and like the fonts and text within the PDF, they will print at the highest resolution your printer is capable of. In many cases they are smaller in file size than a bitmapped version of the same graphic. If possible, this would be my choice for any technical drawings.

Regardless of what format you use, if you want high-quality, scalable technical drawings of ol' No. 2's valve gear taken from those blueprints you found in some old box of goodies, somebody is going to have to do the conversion work by hand to make sure it's accurate and correct.

I noticed an earlier reference to Wikipedia. Wikipedia itself is a great example of digitizing information and making it available to a wide audience. (You can look up almost anything on Wikipedia and get information about it. But be careful, you can look up almost anything...) In addition to this, anybody can write, edit, or correct a Wikipedia article, add graphics, and publish supporting links to other information. This means the burden would not rest completely on one group or individual, we could all contribute. Designated moderators can lock and restrict access to specific articles if they feel the information is too-frequently vandalized by smart-alacks or flooded with questionable information. The moderators also check the articles to see that they meet certain criteria, and that appropriate references and citations are given.

A similar system (a "wiki") could be set up for the information we are talking about. It could be integrated into the existing Wikipedia database, or somebody who knows what they're doing (I'm a graphic designer, not a software engineer...) could get a hold of the software that runs such a system and install it somewhere (like RyPN) and create a new wiki.

Articles would contain summaries, or the most important bits of information. Images and drawings can be inserted as .JPEGs (photos, perhaps with reference links to high-resolution counterparts for reproduction) or .SVGs (drawings and line-art that is scalable). The SVG format is developed by the World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which sets the standards and guidelines that web browsers should follow, and most if not all newer browsers natively support this format. MS Internet Explorer seems to be reluctant to support this and requires a plug-in. (I personally use Firefox; Firefox natively supports the format.) I do not know if applications like AutoCAD will export to this format, but graphics design applications (Adobe Illustrator) will import and export .SVG, as well as various AutoCAD formats (.DXF, .DWG)

In recent years, may people have taken advantage of the "web log" (a.k.a. "Blog") applications. There are a number of websites (besides MySpace) that use this technology, and it allows the user to easily create a journal or "book" of information that is organized and usable. Like a wiki, you wouldn't necessarily need an application on your computer at home, since the software that manages the information resides on a web server. This might be an option for somebody wanting to make a smaller, specific collection of information available on the Internet through their own personal web site.

Clearly there is a wide variety of avenues. Answering the questions of "Why are we converting this information?", "What are we/other people going to do with it once it is converted?", "What resources do we have to make the info available to others?", and other similar questions will ultimately determine the best method for preserving and archiving these documents.

Okay, so that was more like $1.50...

Thanks very much for all the excellent postings and suggestions. Of course the present archive system I am working with is the well known "stacks of stuff" approach, which in some cases has advanced to "boxes of stuff" and "file drawers of stuff", augmented by "bookcases of stuff". The ultimate goal is to get this organized so things can be found quickly, have it stored in a format that takes much less space, and have a better ability to make copies and backups. Your suggestions have all been very helpful.

Hear, hear! Filemaker is the ticket. Designing is very user friendly and linking tables (Accesss terminology) is also very intuitive. I found that Access actually takes longer to grindout results of quesries etc than Filemaker.

Distiller allows documents to be locked. Working in a PDF throughput in the graphic arts industry it is critical that images, words, etc. do not get "edited" as you suggest, except by the author (or image provider in this case.)

Bravo, You obviously know your stuff. This comment is coming from a digital and litho printer. I would like permission to copy and paste your succinct explanations into a piece for my clients. If half of them knew what you have pointed out, my job would be much easier. Thanks.

By all means, take what you need. I've been there before trying to explain this stuff to people. (I taught Photoshop at the college level for 2.5 years, and a small community-ed web page design class for about the same amount of time.)

I just had a chance to play with some of the features of Adobe Acrobat Professional version 7, and I was very impressed. It was able to convert images to text very easily. I have an academic journal article that was scanned as an image and sent to me as pdf. I tried to highlight a section of text, but could not because it was an image. Acrobat gave an error message and offered to convert the image to text on-the-fly. I accepted that offer and a few seconds later the whole page was accessible as text. I was able to highlight and to copy text and paste it to notepad.exe

Very, very impressive. It just goes to show the value of pdf as an archive medium.

Hi MX,

If you are still involved with the scanning of two rooms of information would you please contact me off group at raildata at yahoo dot com I have scanned over two full rooms of stuff and have much more to do and would to see if we could share tips or information.

Sincerely,

Allen Stanley