[PRCo] Re: McKeesport

[Fred Schneider]

I agree it is a good idea. 
Now who is going to sit there for hundreds of thousands of hours and scan the photos and put them on a website?

I mentioned giving my local color slides to the Lancaster County Historical Society.   The society librarian said, "I don't want them."   Her reasoning was that in order to get any quality of them, they have to be scanned in very high resolution and that takes her too much of her time and she cannot be bothered.   If I want to give her an 8x10 print, that's find but don't waste her time with slides.   Sadly, the former dean of the society who would have gladly taken them and pounded her into submission died in March.    There is no one to overrule Mary Ann.   

Guys, I recall railfans bitching 45 years ago that the Historical Society of Pennsylvania wanted $6 for each contact print from the Brill collection.   Their attitude was, we can pay a photo processing $1.25 or whatever for an 8x10 so what right does the historical society have to charge more than that?   

The right is that it probably cost $3,000 in 1960 dollars just to put a roof over them.   Then add in the file cabinets.   Now add the cost of the employee who goes to that room and gets out the plate you want and carefully takes it to the processor and then goes to get it and bring it and the print back.  Next he has to carefully refile the glass.   Now he has to wrap up your print and take it to the post office.   We probably don't have ten people in the day who want prints, we have one.   So each one of those trips is a unique journey.   They were probably lucky to break even on $6 a print on the labor alone without adding in any overhead costs ... and they had a right to add in the overhead.   Where was the overhead?   That was charged when you paid the fee to use the library.   

So what might it be worth to look at the archives at PTM?   
Ghengis
My personal opinion is a little more to the right than the official rules.   Maybe to the right of  Genghis Kahn?   I would suggest that a member who works in the library should have unlimited access.   A member who works as a docent or as the Educator or some other officer should have unlimited access.   If you are doing something for the museum, you have should have access.   If Bernie Orient or Bruce Wells, who work almost every Saturday, need the original West Penn drawings for 832, that should be their right to go get them.    If Ed Lybarger is going to bring stacks of curling photos to Lancaster and ask Fred Schneider to rewash and dry and flatten them for the library, then I think Fred should have access (and I do have keys to the library).      Now if you also send in $100 here and a $50 there as additional donations to Scott, maybe that should qualify too.    But I would postulate (and this is my opinion and not Ed's or the Board's) that a person who simply pays dues should have the right of access if he or she pays an additional access fee.

There was an old depression era adage that went, "There is no free lunch."   It costs a lot of money to run a library.   A whole lot of money. 

I think we need to realize that minimum wage today is between $8 and $9 an hour and a realistic minimum, i.e. the amount you need to pay to get someone out of bed in the morning, can be closer to a $10 to $12 range.     The last time I was making 8x10 prints as a commercial business was 1997 and then I was charging Bill Middleton $6 a print and I have to admit that I was giving him reproduction quality work for commercial quality prices.    Since then the price of materials has gone out of sight because so little of it is made .... instead of a 20 cents for an 8x10 sheet of paper, it is up closer to a $1.00 and you have to be willing to throw away dollars instead of pennies when things are not quite right.     Some quick number crunching shows me
that I might be able to do it today for about $12 for an 8x10 plus shipping and mailing costs.   Then if you are in the museum business you need to put your overhead costs on top of that.   Could they sell a silver print today for under $30 to $40?   I doubt it.   That is why most prints are digital.

But I would not put anything on line that is high resolution.   I think I would let you browse for one fee and buy a high res scan for another fee.   






On May 15, 2011, at 2:05 PM, Herb Brannon wrote:

> Considering the number of years those photos have been in PTM filing
> cabinets collecting gross revenue of $0.00, it would seem they may as well
> be posted and shared with those who would want to view them. Possibly some
> sort of subscription website might generate revenue for PTM.
> 
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> On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 11:50, Phillip Clark Campbell <pcc_sr at yahoo.com>wrote:
> 
>> Yes, Ray, that is an excellent idea.  The museum depends
>> upon donations, sales, grants not having regular income
>> like business.  Thus photos can be a source of identification
>> and income which poses problems in posting.  There is
>> an answer;  just don't know how that can be approached.
>> 
>> Phil
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>> ________________________________
>> 
>> --
>> Herb Brannon
>> In Cuyahoga Valley National Park
>> 
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