As a frequent user of historical data from the Q and other railroads, I feel
that some people's philosophy of giving everything away for free to entice
people is wrong. I believe that asking a nominal fee for the Data Sheets or
archival drawings makes good business sense. Someone had to spend the time to
compile and print the data, and someone had to spend the money to rescue and
store the drawings and correspondence that are being used. I don't expect to
get that for free.
The people who volunteer their time are doing so with the hope that the Society
will benefit from their efforts. I would hope that no one would begrudge being
asking to pay a small amount of money so the Society can continue to preserve
and publish information on our railroad.
My two cents!
Rich Gortowski
-----Original Message-----
From: 'Dave Lotz' Dave_Lotz@bellsouth.net [CBQ] <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thu, Jun 12, 2014 1:29 pm
Subject: RE: [CBQ] Track bumpers/derails; LaCrosse; paint dating & Webmaster
Nelson,
I guess it’s my turn to offer an apology for dropping the ball. I do indeed
have all the data sheets andwould be willing to send them to you, or bring them
along with me to hand themto you at Galesburg at the end of the month. I’ve got
so many things on my plate, sometimes things fall off…remindersare always
welcome!
We now have the capability to put low-res thumbnails on the BRHSwebsite, and
sell high-res copies for download and printing. We just needsomeone who knows
how to make this work…
Dave
-----OriginalMessage-----
From: CBQ@yahoogroups.com[mailto:CBQ@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2014 1:58PM
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Trackbumpers/derails; LaCrosse; paint dating & Webmaster
Gene,
You did askme to explore costs for scanning and making CDs. Dave Lotz told me
he had allof the data sheets, so I ask Dave to send mea list of titles with a
page count, but he didn't respond, so I gave up on theproject. I thought there
were many more than 14 for a total of 160 pages. It'sprobably not cost
effective to release a CD disk. Most members already havesome or all of them.
It would make sense to post them on the web site for newmembers, potential
members, or other interested people. My offer to scan themstill stands, if
someone will make the ones I don't have available. This wouldbe a good pilot
program in electronic publishing, possibably allaying theirrational fears of
some board members.
Nelson
On Jun 12, 2014, at 11:05 AM, "'Gene Tacey' taceys@gpcom.net [CBQ]"
<CBQ@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
I am not sure what happened back whenNelson sent his offer. We discussed it at
a board meeting and thought it wouldbe a good idea to do the out of print
sheets on a CD. I was supposed to contactNelson that the board was interested
and would he take it on as a project andif so we needed more than just an offer
to scan them. We wanted him todetermine what it would cost to scan them
(probably no cost if he would do),cost of CD’s, Cost of putting a nice label on
the CD, Price for the CD jewelcases, and a recommendation as to how many to
make and how much to price themat.
I thought I sent him a letter to thateffect and never heard back. It is
possible that I didn’t send it so he may nothave known what we wanted. I
thought this was a worthwhile project and have hadit on my list of things to do
for some time, but haven’t had an opportunity tofollow up on it.
I apologize for not getting back toNelson, I am not sure what happened as I may
have gotten busy and forgot tosend him the letter requesting more info.
As to the archive material, it wasdetermined by the board quite some time back
that the archives (once we gotthem established somewhere) would probably not be
able to sustain themselvesand the cost would be borne by the membership.
However, it was also felt thatthe archive material should at least help
supplement the cost. Now that we havea physical location there will be a lot of
work to develop a catalog or atleast an index, develop a way to put the
information on line and also develop aprocess whereby someone will be able to
either man the facility to allowpersons to come in to research or to find
persons willing to do the researchfor someone’s request. As to the comment that
modelers won’t pay forinformation, I am not sure about that. Some may not but
having just spend asubstantial amount for photos from the Nebraska State
Historical Society I amnot sure about that. I am primarily a modeler with a
large interest in history.Time will tell on this.
Just a note about the data sheets. Theywere printed and sent to members
originally as an insert along with a Zephyrsimilar to the I am a Burlington Man
and other items that have been sent tomembers. They were never intended as a
“publication” but when we did them weprinted additional ones so they would be
available at least for a period oftime. We will probably not include Sign Sheet
#1 on the CD whenever I get itcompleted as it is essentially a shorter version
of Sign sheet #2.
Not sure what was meant by moreinformation as the excel spreadsheet done by Ken
is a complete list of all thedata sheets that have been done.
I would again like to apologize for notgetting back to Nelson before.
Gene Tacey
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