P3D Re: Stereo repositories

[fj834@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Dr. George A. Themelis)]

John Roberts writes:

>If you were to make the effort to carefully review the question you 
>asked and the reply I posted, you would find that my answer was targeted 
>toward the specific question you asked: "I have only one question:  How 
>far can it grow before it becomes unmanageable?". My response was that 
>modern technology could make management of a large collection of 
>pictures much more convenient than you appear to think. My discussion 
>was of the mechanism of this organization - not an implication that 
>books are the same thing as photographs.

The point is well-taken John (and I *do* read your postings carefully). 
So, the system for managing large collections of information (books,
pictures, etc.) exist and it works for the case of books.  My point is that
this system requires resources that exist for books and don't exist for
collections of personal stereo images.

>I don't think society considers sports statistics to be a top
>priority for survival and enhancement, and yet tremendous effort goes into
>them just because a sufficient number of people have been persuaded that 
>they're interested in them. 

Of course, there is a difference between cataloguing books and sports
statistics.  My tax money do not go to finance these statistics but they do
go to fund libraries.

>There may be enough interest even now to justify cataloged 
>archives of several million stereo images.

I sincerely doubt that such interest exists.  It seems to me that we just
went from one extreme to the other.  Someone said that personal slides have
no value and it makes sense that they are thrown away, I said that since
there are a few people willing to pay a small amount of money they should
not be thrown away, and you are saying that they should be catalogued and
archived (spending public and private money?)

>the radio amateurs don't limit their transmissions
>to ten miles to save on the cost of equipment

Yes, but do they tape al their transmissions to be saved for ever? 
Similarly, the fact that a picture is taken does it mean that it should be
preserved for ever?  It is very easy to overload any system of preserving
and cataloging stereo images by feeding it EVERYTHING that was ever
recorded.

Take the case of Harold Lloyd again.  Should all his 300,000 slides be
catalogued?  To go back to the comparison with books, it usually takes an
author and a publisher for a book to be published.  Often there are more
than one people who believe that the information in the book is worth
publishing.  And once the book was published it carries keywords and
numbers to aid in cataloguing it.

To take a picture all it takes is a click of a button.  Personal images is
unpublished work.  Someone must at some time decide what pictures are worth
dealing with.  (Let's not forget that there are published stereo
photographers.  Stan White is one example.  He has published a VM set with
21 images.  He also has a stereo slide show that has been circulated in
stereo clubs and presented in NSA, etc.  Stan was in charge of deciding
which pictures to show.)

>It would be in the interest of this group to think of better ways to
>archive and organize their images. If some of the preparatory work 
>were done ahead of time, it might be easier for image librarians to deal 
>with them.

That's a nice and noble idea.  I've read that Harold Lloyd was so busy
taking pictures that he did not have time to load his stereo cameras!  
Apparently, he had his secretary load the cameras and mount the slides. 
Lack of time (and money to pay someone to do these things for us) prevents
many of us to a) take pictures, b) mount the pictures we take, c) organize
the pictures we mount :-)

George Themelis


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