BVS Archive material
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 12:46 pm
Some of you may already know that I have offered my services to run the BVS Archive, which I understand will be voted on at the AGM.
Unfortunately I cannot make the AGM as I will be on holiday, but I thought it would probably be worth me explaining what I have in mind for the archive material and answer any questions that anyone may have.
My understanding is that at present, most of the BVS archive is in printed form and my first task will be to get this into electronic format and catalogue it properly. Once this is done, the next task is to make it available online to BVS members, so that members can view and download anything they want.
I feel it is very important that we don't exclude people who aren't IT literate, so my next step would be to start producing booklets and books of material.
Ideally, I would like to have these published as proper volumes, complete with ISBN numbers. If I did this, we could donate copies to a small number of libraries across the UK, thereby establishing a number of centres where BVS members - or for that matter, the general public - would be able to visit and read up on their favourite subject. Theoretically, you would be able to go into any library and ask for a copy of the book to be ordered for you. In reality, I'm unsure of the practicalities of this.
For people who wanted a copy of a BVS book for themselves, they could buy one, either from Amazon or by going into any book shop and ordering a copy by quoting the ISBN number.
Obviously there is a cost for all of this, and I am still investigating what this cost is likely to be: indications suggest that we're talking about £200-300 in order to put a book into publication and get enough copies of the book to put into distribution.
All of this is likely to take a lot of time and until I know exactly how big our archive is, its difficult to put some timeframes on it. My gut feel is that electronically archiving and cataloguing the information and getting it online is likely to take most of the summer. Reproducing the information in book form is likely to take even longer and I wouldn't expect to have more than one book available this year.
If anyone has any questions or comments they would like to make, please post them here and I'll do my best to answer them.
Unfortunately I cannot make the AGM as I will be on holiday, but I thought it would probably be worth me explaining what I have in mind for the archive material and answer any questions that anyone may have.
My understanding is that at present, most of the BVS archive is in printed form and my first task will be to get this into electronic format and catalogue it properly. Once this is done, the next task is to make it available online to BVS members, so that members can view and download anything they want.
I feel it is very important that we don't exclude people who aren't IT literate, so my next step would be to start producing booklets and books of material.
Ideally, I would like to have these published as proper volumes, complete with ISBN numbers. If I did this, we could donate copies to a small number of libraries across the UK, thereby establishing a number of centres where BVS members - or for that matter, the general public - would be able to visit and read up on their favourite subject. Theoretically, you would be able to go into any library and ask for a copy of the book to be ordered for you. In reality, I'm unsure of the practicalities of this.
For people who wanted a copy of a BVS book for themselves, they could buy one, either from Amazon or by going into any book shop and ordering a copy by quoting the ISBN number.
Obviously there is a cost for all of this, and I am still investigating what this cost is likely to be: indications suggest that we're talking about £200-300 in order to put a book into publication and get enough copies of the book to put into distribution.
All of this is likely to take a lot of time and until I know exactly how big our archive is, its difficult to put some timeframes on it. My gut feel is that electronically archiving and cataloguing the information and getting it online is likely to take most of the summer. Reproducing the information in book form is likely to take even longer and I wouldn't expect to have more than one book available this year.
If anyone has any questions or comments they would like to make, please post them here and I'll do my best to answer them.