>From: "Connie Burkett" >To: "'Tim Stowell'" > "'Ron & Kathy' > "'Maggie Stewart' > "'John C. Jacoby'" >Subject: RE: [Census-Discuss] - Followup >Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 16:25:53 -0400 > >Tim, >My suggestion for limiting the transcriptions for the imaged censuses was >aimed at John Jacoby's item 7 (his email dated Sept 1, 1999) which reads: 7. >The stated goal of the Census Projects is unrealistic and needs to be >rethought. If a strategy is not developed geometric progression of >population size alone will destroy it. > >Tim, I agree with you, that the census image files on-line are hard to read, >and in some cases impossible to read. Because of their size, the image >files take very long to load onto your screen. Of course, they are not >searchable, and trying to open each of these files to look for the name you >need takes forever. The "extended" index files contain enough information >on every person in the census file so you would know exactly which image >.gif file(s) to download If you download the file that you know the name >you need is on, you can retrieve that .gif file in a software program such >as MS PhotoEditor and zoom in to read the information. > >We are currently creating an "extended" index file-set with each of our >uploaded censuses by striping away the unneeded columns from the full >transcription, and then sorting by lastname, firstname, page#. Our >pub/census/st/county/year folders (in most cases) contain both the full >transcription and the "extended" index. Doing the "extended" index first >would be a way of making quicker use of the image files. I don't think we >want to stray from our original intent to get the full transcriptions >on-line. If we opt to do the "extended" index files first as a way of >speeding up the use of the image files, the rest of the columns for that >census could be filled in later. > >Connie > > > > -----Original Message----- >From: Tim Stowell >Sent: Friday, September 17, 1999 2:59 AM >To: WVConnie; 'Ron & Kathy'; 'Maggie Stewart'; 'John C. Jacoby' >Subject: (Census-Discus) - Followup > >At 06:42 PM 9/1/99 -0400, Connie Burkett wrote: >>Images: >>* With the increase in the image files being uploaded, we could limit the >>transcriptions for an imaged census to just an "extended" index. >>* For the 1850 and above counties with images - - the extended index would >>contain Name, Page, Line, Age, and Birthplace. Since it takes such a long >>time to open a .gif file, the extended index would contain enough >>information to help the researchers know exactly which .gif file to open. >>* Doing an extended index rather than a full transcription could help speed >>up getting the transcribed information on-line. > >Wouldn't this be a stray from the original intent? Some of the scanned >images are hard to read for me - with halfway decent eyesight. Full >transcriptions with the scanned images as backup for those who wish to >verify our transcriptions, would seem to benefit the public better than a >brief index of a line in the census. > >Of course, if I've misunderstood the intention here, please correct me. > >Tim > > >