NSS WikiNational Space Society Archive Committee Wiki
The News
It's Here! January 24, 2006 This Wiki is live
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NssArchiveWiki is the short form name of this Wiki
The official name is National Space Society Archive Committee Wiki
The Nss Archive Wiki Purpose
Provide a virtual on-line collaborative work outline for the conduct of NSS Archive Committee business
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This Wiki will exists at the pleasure of the NSS Archive Committee.
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The members of the NSS Archives Committee are:
* Dale Amon (Chairman) * Chuck Divine * David Brandt Erichsen * Mark Hopkins * Ben Huset * Terry Savage * Scott Shjefte * Jim Turney * Dennis Whipple * David Stuart * Leonard David * Lori Garver * Dave Brody
This committee is not intended to create new work for anyone. Rather it is a means of communicating back and forth on *the work you are already doing*.
My hopes are to identify what documents (paper, artifact, audio tape, video) on our history (L5/NSI/NSS national and chapters or any other organization which merged with NSS) are in existence. We know much has been lost. Every time the national office moved, things were discarded with little regard to history. Large quantities of documents were stored in the basement of our building in DC and destroyed by water damage. It is very apparent that we simply cannot rely on our national office to be a repository for the long run. It is a fact that over the decades our HQ has failed utterly in this regard.
What does each of us bring to this effort?
Dale Amon Keeper of ISDC historical
archives; much already on
line. Has files on on all
the first decade of ISDC's;
files on spacepac, L5,
and PghL5 from the 80's.
David Brandt Erichsen Has been collecting physical
archives of L5 and NSS; has
scanned the early L5 News
and put them on line.
Dennis Whipple Suggested by Mark Hopkins.
Day job company digitizes to
DVD.
Terry Savage Has a collection of photos.
Chuck Divine Has thousands of b&w photos
from first decade of ISDC's
and other L5 events.
Jim Turney Former CEO of Liberty Audio
and Film Service who
professionally taped at
least 4 ISDC's and also
other events which may
be relevant. Masters are
in secure storage.
Ben Huset MNl5 has been video taping
Scott Shjefte and photographing events
like ISDC and chapters
and regional conferences
for two decades and has
a treasure chest of our
history.
James Bennett Has boxes of old papers
on commercial space and
probably from early L5
days.
Mark Hopkins Wishes to see that we
record our history and
gives us direct board
and ExComm visibility.
David Stuart Has been making video tape of
ISDC's and other events for
many years.
Leonard David Was part of Harvest Moon and
early days of NSI.
Lori Garver Former NSS Executive Director.
Dave Brody Videographer with early
footage of L5 Society leadership
and events.
I have been working quietly on this over the last few weeks:
Carolyn Meinel has offered to scan some of the papers from the founding era.
Jim Bennett has space in his new house and will be collecting boxes of archives he has in storage.
This summer I recovered several boxes of files covering ISDC's, chapters, L5, Spacepac and such from storage in Pittsburgh.
I have begun identifying who has original boxed sets of ISDC audio tapes and have access to full sets for 1987, 1988 and 1990. I have odds and ends from a number of other years.
I have acquired the necessary equipment and tested out my process for getting turning cassette tapes, Dolby or not, into high quality wav files on DVD.
I have acquired a large format (A3 size) scanner to replace my old legal size unit. This allows me to scan much larger items.
What I would like to see happen over time is that we share all the archives we digitize and build up multiple repositories of the sum of our collections. That way we can be assured that no single disaster, whether disk failure, hurricane, tsunami, departure from corporeal plain, or whatever can cause the loss of part or all of our history.
We can also share experience and methods. For example, I have scanned well into the tens of thousands of pages over the last 8 years. I have developed my own archival scanning standard:
150x150 dpi resolution
24 bit colour
1" margin on one edge of image for a
calibration tool. I use a 6" ruler and a penny to guarantee size and aspect ratio information are recoverable.
Others may have their own preferences, but discussion can help us all.
I believe MNL5 are gradually moving their tapes to DVD. I'd like to hear more about it.
Jim Turney has a long term goal of transferring his video tapes to digital media and taught me a great deal about the problems in this: the biggest is that on an old video tape, you may get only ONE change to record it. Some of the oxide coating sloughs off on the first pass through the heads, so the second run gives you very low quality. You want to get it right and at the highest digitization quality you ever expect to get - the first time you play it.
I might also note that I have found information in unexpected places. I am currently scanning my old engineering notebooks and found much notation about Pittsburgh L5 and the L5 period from 1981-1985. Why, I even found Beverly Freed's formula for a drink called the "L5" which made our parties good drunken affairs, something Pittsburgh L5 was well known for!
So, I await your comments, suggestions, reports, ideas, and whatever.
Lets save our history while we still can!