> Sorry to do this through the list, but I need to find someone I spoke with > at the Schenectady Library last week. I cannot find his name nor email address > in all my "stuff". I had put a few obits on the hard drive of a computer > prior to switching to getting hard copies. The gentlemen had said he could email > them to me if he did not see me before I left the library. We missed each > other prior to his leaving at the end of the day, and I would really like to get > those obits. The staff both at this library and the genealogical members at > the NYS library are absolutely terrific and wonderful to us researchers. > Thank you all. Thanks for the kind words, Ruth. I'll mention to the group that what Ruth is referring to is our computer connected to a microfilm reader/printer which has a scanner accessory; instead of printing @ 10 cents per page you may save images to the PC, which includes a 250MB Zip drive so you may carry your images home. We don't have CD writers on our public computers, but if you bring a blank CD we can work something out. The scanner produces compressed TIFF images which are of very good quality, frequently better than what you'd get just printing from film. Ruth cropped her images to just the section she wanted and at 600 dots per inch (which you'd want to get a good reproduction from the old film) they ranged from 2.5 to 5MB. The scanning software is relatively easy to operate; I qualify that because as any of you who have used a scanner know, the details can be quirky and sometimes what works for one part of a page may be too light or dark on another part. Because the scanner will capture whatever is on the screen of the reader, it is possible (using a lens setting which shrinks an image to fit on the screen) to scan an entire newspaper page. Even if you can't read it on the reader, a 600 dpi image should be very legible when enlarged. We've had this available for about a year and a half, but haven't publicized it widely because not everyone felt comfortable assisting researchers with it. We have a better idea of what we're doing now. :-) If you plan to come and spend the day on it, the best thing to do is e-mail me and we'll arrange something; the computer is also used for general word processing and we'd want to make sure it's available for you. Bob Sullivan <rsullivan@sals.edu> Schenectady County Public Library (NY) <http://www.scpl.org/> Schenectady Digital History Archive <http://www.schenectadyhistory.org/>