[Leica] Informal LHSA Survey

[ekowaleski at twmi.rr.com (Ed Kowaleski)]

As usual, fine letter.
Ed
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "MARK DAVISON" <davison_m@msn.com>
To: <lug@leica-users.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 10:11 AM
Subject: RE: [Leica] Informal LHSA Survey


> Marc James Small has asked
>
>>I would appreciate those LHSA members on the LUG to e-mail me privately 
>>and to advise whether or not they possess a DVD drive on their computer. 
>><marcsmall@comcast.net>  Your answers will be held in confidence:  I am 
>>simply trying to build a statistical base.
>
>
> I would also appreciate it if those same LHSA members on the LUG would let 
> me know what your experience with the Viewfinder DVD was.  In particular:
>
> 1) did you experience difficulty using the archive because you had no DVD 
> reader? If so, did you buy and install a DVD reader?
> 2) do you have a Mac or a PC, and which operating system do you use? (e.g. 
> Windows 98, Windows XP, Mac OS X 10.4, etc.)
> 3) if you were able to read the DVD, did you find the content useful?
> 4) do you use the archive from the DVD, or did you copy it onto a hard 
> drive?
> 5) did you need to purchase a DVD reader to use the archive?
>
> For non LHSA members a word of explanation:  the LHSA is the Leica 
> Historical Society of America, which originally started as an association 
> of Leica collectors, but has grown to be a group of general Leica 
> enthusiasts.  LHSA publishes a quarterly journal, the Viewfinder, which 
> contains both historical articles (on old equipment, Leica corporate 
> history and photography with Leicas) as well as reviews of current 
> equipment and articles on general photographic practice. In addition LHSA 
> sponsors two gatherings: a spring shoot, and a fall general meeting. These 
> gatherings include a variety of talks, some historical, and some purely 
> photographic.  The fall meetings usually feature at least one talk by a 
> professional Leica photographer of some distinction.  You can read more 
> about LHSA at www.lhsa.org.
>
> Recently LHSA issued a DVD-ROM containing an electronic archive of all the 
> back issues of Viewfinder in a single volume.  Each issue is represented 
> by a single .pdf file (which is Adobe's portable document format.) The 
> .pdf files contain scanned facsimiles of the original pages, in order to 
> preserve the text layout and illustrations of the articles.  Behind the 
> facsimile image there is searchable, selectable text which was created by 
> using optical character recognition.
>
> With the archive on a single DVD, the electronic text allows the user to 
> search the entire contents of the archive using search tools provided in 
> Adobe Reader.
>
> In addition, putting the archive of a single DVD allows the use of 
> hyperlink facilities within the .pdf standard to create hyperlinks from an 
> topical index to the indvidual .pdf files.
>
> The archive DVD is currently available for no additional charge as a 
> benefit of membership in the LHSA. I have spent quite a few hours reading 
> through the archive, because as member of the volunteer development team 
> which created the archive I had to double check the quality of the 
> scanning and OCR work. There are some fascinating articles, and sometimes 
> I had to pull myself away from reading them to get on with my testing.
>
>
> I think this archive is so much fun, it is worth the price of a year's 
> LHSA membership ($55) just to get it. If you have a Windows XP computer 
> without a DVD drive, you should be able to upgrade to one for less than 
> $50.
>
> The archive does require that you have a computer with a DVD-ROM reader, 
> as well as the capability of  running the Adobe Reader application, 
> version 6.0 or above.
>
> These system requirements are dictated by the technologies involved, but 
> the use of a multi-platform (Mac and PC) commercially supported hypertext 
> facility (Adobe .pdf) should make it possible to enjoy the Viewfinder 
> archive for decades. The disks themselves have been pressed from a master 
> (rather than electronically duplicated onto dye-based writable DVDs) so 
> they should enjoy the same durability as commercial video DVDs.
>
> Mark Davison
> Membership Chair and member of the Viewfinder archive working group, LHSA
>
>
>
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