Nic Costa's index cards - can you help?

[drglitch]

Hello Pennymachines,

Alan Meades here, director of CCCU's Nic Costa Archive. As some of you may know, Nic Costa donated his enormous collection of materials to my university. I was able to use my research funds to get them shipped to the UK and I'm in the process of processing the contents. I should have a research assistant on the project next year and am planning to submit an AHRC bid to make digitisation faster and more accessible (at the moment it's me and my scanner!).

Part of Nic's collection was his index cards that contain information about all of the machines he saw. Other index cards covered manufacturers, locations and people. The issue here is that there are 5000-or-so handwritten index cards. I'm scanning them but there is no way to use OCR to make the index searchable. I was hoping that Pennymachine members might be willing to help rename the files so they can be a usable resource?

I'll eventually place these on the NicCosta.org website, and would expect a copy placed in the resources here, but for now I've added them to a OneDrive share below. Please do take a look, and while you're there rename some files so they can be used by those that follow you:

https://cccu-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/pe ... A?e=Q2FIRk

I hope it's ok to share this here, renaming the files is key to extracting the value of this resource. All credit to Nic for his donation, his record-keeping, but most of all his energy and foresight as a researcher.

Alan

[drglitch]

I should add, this is only about 1/4 of the cards. I've attempted to order them correctly as they became mixed in transit. There may be some duplications and the occasional card in the wrong place - but renaming should help fix that.

[gameswat]

Hey Alan, awesome job you're doing! But please explain how we actually add in the titles ourselves? I just looked around but couldn't see how to do it. Thanks.

[drglitch]

Hi, and good question!

It's a bit convoluted as so much is with Microsoft OneDrive! Once you've looked at the image you can go back to the file list, hover over the file and three dots should appear - from this you can select rename.

The alternative is download the files, rename them on your computer, then let me know and upload them - I think I've made it so anybody can.

The only issue there is we might duplicate some effort, but should get things done quickly. I'm also updating and uploading them this end, going from the sections with the fewest entries. It's a fun distraction from the kids' Christmas excitement and boring DIY...

[moonriver]

Great!
Just make sure the simple fencing cretin that nicks everything can't get his hands on it all

[drglitch]

I've nearly finished the renaming of the machines A-Z on my end, it didn't take as long to do as I feared.

[arrgee]

Hello drglitch, I clicked on the link only to get the following message?

[cait001]

excellent initiative!

[drglitch]

Hi everyone, as I've almost finished renaming them all I thought it best to wait until they're all done and then re-share it. I'll put it on Niccosta.org and see if the cards can be added to the resources here so the information will get out there

[drglitch]

Hello drglitch, I clicked on the link only to get the following message?

Sorry, yes that's something I did my end. But it'll be coming back.