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1faithluth
Greetings. As we begin to phase out our old-fashioned and bulky library catalog, I am hesitant to destroy all the cards. Have any of you held on to the Author cards as an accession list? With more than 3000 items, a Word accession list would be too bulky and developing a spreadsheet would take too much time.
Looking forward to your responses,
Rita Barsun
Library Addict and Disgruntled Gardener
Looking forward to your responses,
Rita Barsun
Library Addict and Disgruntled Gardener
2davidgn
Scan the cards, organize the scanned images using photo management software?
(e.g. one of these: https://alternativeto.net/software/picasa/?license=opensource -- just filter by the operating system you're using.
To do that, click the "all platforms" dropdown where it says "Alternatives to Picasa for all platforms" on the page, and replace with your operating system.)
Ideally you'd want a document-fed scanner, perhaps something like a Scansnap.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1259090-REG/fujitsu_pa03656_b305_scansnap... (desktop, high-capacity)
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1083413-REG/fujitsu_pa03688_b005_scansnap... (mobile, lower-capacity)
In a pinch, a flatbed will do however.
If you lack a scanner of any sort and are limited in budget, the Canon LIDE range of flatbed scanner is a good choice for the purpose. Examples can be found for about $20 in good used condition. Just make sure that the drivers exist for your present operating system (or, if not, take a look at Vuescan: https://www.hamrick.com/ -- though the software license will add to the bottom line.)
(e.g. one of these: https://alternativeto.net/software/picasa/?license=opensource -- just filter by the operating system you're using.
To do that, click the "all platforms" dropdown where it says "Alternatives to Picasa for all platforms" on the page, and replace with your operating system.)
Ideally you'd want a document-fed scanner, perhaps something like a Scansnap.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1259090-REG/fujitsu_pa03656_b305_scansnap... (desktop, high-capacity)
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1083413-REG/fujitsu_pa03688_b005_scansnap... (mobile, lower-capacity)
In a pinch, a flatbed will do however.
If you lack a scanner of any sort and are limited in budget, the Canon LIDE range of flatbed scanner is a good choice for the purpose. Examples can be found for about $20 in good used condition. Just make sure that the drivers exist for your present operating system (or, if not, take a look at Vuescan: https://www.hamrick.com/ -- though the software license will add to the bottom line.)
3faithluth
Yikes! We are talking 3300+ cards, some in pretty bad shape. A scanner would be a great thing to have, even personally, but the images would be stored on my computer and thus not accessible to anyone else. Since we plan to move in three years or so, someone else will have to take over the library. The current cards are in order by author. Adding to the scanned list as items are added to the collection would disturb that order.
Okay, maybe it boils down to my being a semi luddite who does not trust technology to solve all my problems.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I very much appreciate your input and--who knows?--may someday actually incorporate your suggestions.
Okay, maybe it boils down to my being a semi luddite who does not trust technology to solve all my problems.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I very much appreciate your input and--who knows?--may someday actually incorporate your suggestions.
4PhaedraB
>3 faithluth: I can't address all of your concerns, but it doesn't matter to which computer the scanner is attached. All you have to do is load the scans onto a thumb drive and then add them to any computer you want.
The downside with scans, though, is they're simply images and wouldn't necessarily be searchable.
The downside with scans, though, is they're simply images and wouldn't necessarily be searchable.
5davidgn
Apart from a vastly faster workflow, the benefit of the Scansnap devices is that they do come with proprietary software that will automatically OCR the cards for you (though you'll probably need to do a lot of cleanup of the data, particularly if the cards are in bad shape). That should make it relatively easy to create a database, and the software will allow you to back it up to (included) cloud storage. Not perfect, but worth considering.
6lesmel
I'm going to take a step back from the original question and ask...why do you want to keep the cards (even digitally)? What do the cards contain that your online catalog does not?
7divinenanny
>1 faithluth: May I ask why a spreadsheet is too much work?
Because I was thinking that if you are phasing out the card catalog by transferring/transcribing the information here on LibraryThing/TinyCat, you could do an export to a spreadsheet and have that on offer?
Because I was thinking that if you are phasing out the card catalog by transferring/transcribing the information here on LibraryThing/TinyCat, you could do an export to a spreadsheet and have that on offer?
8lesmel
As a secondary note, card catalog cards make excellent scratch paper and/or library-oriented ornaments/decorations.
9Keeline
If scanning fragile card catalog cardss is an issue, you can also set up a simple jig called a Cardboard Box Book Scanner. With this, you can set up a stack of cards, photograph one, remove it, and repeat. This is easiest if you have a remote (infrared, wired, or phone app) for your camera. You can photograph a small number like 3,300 cards in a surprisingly short period of time.
If the images are given sensible names (author-title) then you can find the images when desired on your file system.
OCR is tricky because most cards from card catalogs do not have a strictly-defined format.
As far as information that is on the cards but not in your OPAC, LT, or another database, that does happen because some notes that may be typed or written on cards don't always have fields in a database. While not exactly the same, I found this to be especially true for copyright card records from the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. It was worth looking at the cards themselves because of the additional information found on them as well as the handwritten notes. There were also deeper files that the cards referred to in ledger book volumes and these had even more information.
James
If the images are given sensible names (author-title) then you can find the images when desired on your file system.
OCR is tricky because most cards from card catalogs do not have a strictly-defined format.
As far as information that is on the cards but not in your OPAC, LT, or another database, that does happen because some notes that may be typed or written on cards don't always have fields in a database. While not exactly the same, I found this to be especially true for copyright card records from the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. It was worth looking at the cards themselves because of the additional information found on them as well as the handwritten notes. There were also deeper files that the cards referred to in ledger book volumes and these had even more information.
James
10UUCFLibrary
I have the same Luddite tendencies and agree it would be nice to have a backup of the originals...
but...
the time it would take to scan and organize those cards might be better spent keying the extra data into LT. There is a Comments field that is probably large enough to contain all the data you feel you might be losing. Once it's in LT, if you really want a paper copy, you should be able to export to a CSV (and thence into your spreadsheet tool of choice) and build a printable report from there.
If you are good about standardizing how you create the comments, you'll have better searchability than you have now.
but...
the time it would take to scan and organize those cards might be better spent keying the extra data into LT. There is a Comments field that is probably large enough to contain all the data you feel you might be losing. Once it's in LT, if you really want a paper copy, you should be able to export to a CSV (and thence into your spreadsheet tool of choice) and build a printable report from there.
If you are good about standardizing how you create the comments, you'll have better searchability than you have now.