Over the past few years, I’ve managed to scan several dozen old mining catalogs, bulletins, and pamphlets and have uploaded them to the Internet Archive. But the thought of doing more makes me sick.
It started with trying to build a PVC scanning rig in a manner made popular by David Landin, known frequently as the “David Landin scanner”. This rig allows two cameras to be lowered on connected “arms” of PVC, to photograph the opposite pages of a book opened in the middle. The idea is that by photographing book pages, you can avoid destroying the book. Well, it turns out that the materials for such a rig are very different in the UK than they are in the US, and my rig was a massive flop, not the least too because the geometry simply didn’t work very well, and this drove me out of my mind. I eventually settled on taking still shots of pages, page by page,using an attached trigger and a camera slide rail to adjust the camera distance from the page and maintain focus.
The was fine for the first 2 or 3 scans, as I had a lot of energy for it and dedication, but after a few more 600-800 page books, it became tedious. I won’t even bore you with all the details that went in to the process, but it’s not fun when you’re mildly OCD and don’t have a background in photography to do everything correctly. What I ended up scanning wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing, and it meant the public would have access to these old books, rather than having to get lucky and find an antique listing that costs $60-200.
It’s funny, too. There have been times when I’ve wondered about getting a master’s degree in history (among other subjects), but getting a master’s in history is more about you gaining a credential than actually making any sort of difference in the world. Which is not to say it’s bad, only that writing a master’s thesis in history probably does absolutely nothing for the world, if for no other reason than nobody is ever going to read it aside from the professors who grade you on it. Whereas, my uploads have received a collective 1,500-2,000 views, with maybe a dozen favorites. While this is not tremendously impressive, it still represents a significant contribution to history because these are primary resources that have never been scanned before, and the only copies that exist are either crumbling in academic libraries or squirreled away in Earl’s basement, never to see the light of day. They represent significant shifts in mining technological history, and are great for researching the tools of the trade. From my perspective, they also help explorers research their findings. Doing this has done more good for the world than me getting a master’s degree in history ever could.
But with that being said…I fucking hate scanning these books. I’m just…I’m done. I can’t do this any more. There are so many quality checks you have to do, I was always getting the lighting wrong when using the cameras, and even after going full destruction mode and cutting the spines off of some of the books to make scanning easier, my two-sided scanner would get dust specs on it and draw lines down every other page for 50 pages sometimes, so I’d have to go back and scan those (I started chunking them at a certain point, to review quality along the way, but that slows things down, too).
I mean, I’ve seen some scans on the Internet Archive where someone literally held the book open with one hand and took pictures of the pages with the other, and those books got dozens of favorites, but my brain would fight me on this. Insert “Weakness disgusts me!” meme.
But I really just have to let it go. An imperfect scan is better than no scan. I did my part. I paid my dues. I have increased the information in the world. And people who enjoy these things the way I do can appreciate the fruits, too.
How much did I spent on all of this? Oof, I almost don’t want to know. The most expensive part was buying two cameras, and I think I spent around $700 total on those (2 semi-pro compact digital cameras from 2013). Hundreds on the PVC materials I later scrapped. Many expensive books. Probably somewhere around $2,000 total. To be fair, people sometimes spend far more on other hobbies, though.
I have some cool books I really like, that have helped me identify and timeline some of the artifacts I’ve found on public land. But yeah, I’m done. I have one book left that I haven’t scanned, and it wasn’t even very expensive, and is a good candidate for having its cover removed and pages sliced up, but it’s also 800 pages and I just don’t think that I have it in me. It’s a book of assay chemicals, and people don’t tend to view or care about those very much. But it kind of haunts me…don’t I want the public to have access to that, too? Doesn’t that represent one more piece of the puzzle?
No. No! Resist. Don’t listen to the voices. Resist!
Also, I really am kind of a minimalist. I got caught up in the excitement of collecting a very specific series of books published by one retail company, but this meant buying books that have nothing to do with the artifacts I find on public land. I still love the idea of having a smokey-glassed Victorian bookcase full of old books of industry and adventure, but my desire to have this is dwarfed by my desire to own less in general. Collecting was fun, but I could easily go with half of these books and be none the worse, and I honestly miss having fewer books overall.
All of this to say, I’m proud of my contributions, and I’m proud of the fact that I’m not interested in hoarding my data, but rather see the value in trying to share it with the world, the way various authors have shared their knowledge and experience with me. But yeah, I hate photography with a passion, I’m done spending money on these old books (mostly), and I think I will tear my hair out if I scan any more of these. It’s time to give it up and move on.