National side trip, WRHS, an experience of ?????

[Leon]

Bill- Nice write up. It's a shame more can't be done but I actually do understand their concerns. You would think there could be a way to do it and quell their concerns too. I guess if I were in their shoes, and could afford it (that is a big maybe) I would pay for ya'lls expenses for a weekend or several days, depending on how big the job is, to come onsite. Hopefully you and the other volunteers will get a chance to help in the future. I am sure they are beautiful photos and they deserve to be identified.

[billyb]

Thanks Leon,
I do actually recommend the trip for the photo guys. If they have not seen VanOeyen's collection, it would be a good side trip.

Here is the very next page.

VanOeyen list 2 052.jpg

[thecatspajamas]

I might also add that, though Bill speaks highly of me, I feel sure that Scott and Mark would be doing much more of the heavy lifting so to speak when it comes to identifying the unknowns. Having worked on similar projects with other institutions, including helping the LoC clean up many misidentifications in their own archives, they bring much more experience to the table when it comes to a Herculean task such as this. Even Hercules took 12 years to complete his 12 labors though, and even adopting the "divide and conquer" approach, it's just not realistic to expect that all of the work be completed on-site in a day or two.

I do understand their concerns with duplicating the images (believe me, I'm sick of wading through all of the cheap reprints made from Library of Congress scans that proliferate on eBay), but at the same time, there are certainly steps that could be taken to ensure that the images are useful enough for research and identification of the players depicted while not being useful for mass-reproduction. Perhaps much of that would be done during the digitizing phase, which it doesn't seem they are ready to undertake yet (financially speaking), but it's hard being patient and waiting for them to get to that point. Perhaps our interest in the collection can help spur them to action (especially considering the National is in town practically every other year), but in the meantime, it seems that many of the images will remain in obscurity and unidentified.

[billyb]

Lance is right, having Mark and Scott on the team was like picking up two power hitters like Mantle and Williams.
But one of the two, I cannot remember which one, did ask if I had asked Lance to help. So if Mick and Ted think that much of you Lance, don't sell yourself short
With these 3 guys leading the way, I know the job would have gone smoothly. I do not want to let the idea go, and will keep trying.
Maybe it is a copyright issue. I know Getty owns many of the Cleveland Press photo archives, but I did not see where the percentage is that great.
So maybe my next avenue would be to ask them if it is a copyright issue, if so, depending on the numbers, maybe some work could be done on sight and the images that the WRHS does own, they could allow us to download and complete those images. Then chip away on sight to complete the photos they cannot release.
I am open to any suggestions.