Dinosaurs Of Tynwald (and Manx National Heritage)

[%age]

manxnotebook.com is one of the best - the best - resources for all things Manx, especially historical. It is a wonderful internet based facility that has always been way in front of its time.

 

Today an opportunity was missed to make Manx National Heritage records available on the internet also.

 

Although Manx National Heritage are to digitise all their records including for example the newspaper records since the 1800s and over a million photographs, these will only be made available to the public in a refurbished former Government Analysts Laboratory. Over £1.5 million is being allocated. All well and good.

 

The young lad from Rushen, Juan Watterson MHK, further proposed that these records be made available over the internet.

 

I feel that the arguments against the proposal did nothing other than to show the ignorance and perhaps arrogance of some in Tynwald.

 

The results of the voting was,

In the House of Keys:

4 members voted for

20 members voted against

 

and in the rather more elderly and less internet savvy Legislative Council not one voted for the motion.

 

Do you think the eventually digitised records should be made available on the Internet?

[jehovah]

They are public documents and belong to the people.

[Tempus Fugit]

it's all about control, you can't have all and sundry knowing everything, information is power !

[Frances]

£1.5M won't go far - they have for example 3000+ reels of Mormon filmed material (much originally filmed in 1944 and in many cases the microfilm is still the original given to them at the time, now extremely badly scratched by years of poor handling on the microfilmreaders - these films are not suitable for being digitised (ie digitally photographed) and need replacing - I can't see this bill alone less than £30-40k. There are many films of the newspapers that are badly done - the films are out of focus in many cases as well as badly scratched - here the cost of redoing the film must be considerably more.

Numerous indices are still on card index - these need transcribing so that people can then search the images.

There must be a significant cost in transcribing the births marriages + deaths records - I suspect 25+ man years as these need to be verified.

Then you come to the original, currently unfilmed, documents - for some including some parish registers still held in damp vestry safes filming cannot come too soon - I suspect one parish register I know of won't be in here in a few years if not conserved.

All this is before you pay for the servers + infrastructure -

[manshimajin]

and in the rather more elderly and less internet savvy Legislative Council not one voted for the motion.

 

I say young chappy 'rather more elderly' does not mean 'less internet savvy' what! One thinks that the way the Legislative Council votes ain't their age but their intellect...or lack thereof.

 

A missed opportunity and 1/3rd the cost of a roundabout with the potential for even more fun and games...

[Mij]

What a shame. The National Library of Wales has done a beautiful job of placing Welsh heritage on the net. Pressure Tynwald to do something like this:

 

http://www.gtj.org.uk/en/

[Moghrey Mie]

manxnotebook.com is one of the best - the best - resources for all things Manx, especially historical. It is a wonderful internet based facility that has always been way in front of its time.

 

Today an opportunity was missed to make Manx National Heritage records available on the internet also.

 

Although Manx National Heritage are to digitise all their records including for example the newspaper records since the 1800s and over a million photographs, these will only be made available to the public in a refurbished former Government Analysts Laboratory. Over £1.5 million is being allocated. All well and good.

 

The young lad from Rushen, Juan Watterson MHK, further proposed that these records be made available over the internet.

 

I feel that the arguments against the proposal did nothing other than to show the ignorance and perhaps arrogance of some in Tynwald.

 

The results of the voting was,

In the House of Keys:

4 members voted for

20 members voted against

 

 

and in the rather more elderly and less internet savvy Legislative Council not one voted for the motion.

 

Do you think the eventually digitised records should be made available on the Internet?

 

Some members of Tynwald remember the glory days of the Tynwald millennium when thousands of people came over and some of them traced their ancestors. Members are hoping that one day they will all return to use the computers in Kingswood Grove.

And one of these days we will see Douglas beach covered in deckchairs once more.

[Pontius]

... and Scotland, through their excellent site 'Scotland's People'. You have to pay - not a huge amount - and so Scotland makes income from those not able to visit New Register House. A missed opportunity indeed! How long before one of the dozy bu**ers wakes up and realises what they've done today!

[thebees]

As per usual our dickie government cannot plan further than their own poxy lives. Glory glory MHK's 'get me name on a plaque', they'll be remembered for years to come, oh how I laugh at them.

 

Edit: Juan Watterson is ace! I had the fortune to work with him a few years ago, smashing lad and a very decent man.

[Frances]

... and Scotland, through their excellent site 'Scotland's People'. You have to pay - not a huge amount -

actually if they supply one paper copy at current prices (80p) of each frame of the microfilms they have they will have made £3M - digitised photos are I think currently £15 each (maybe more)

[%age]

Hi Frances. I meant to mention you in the first post regarding manxnotebook. Amazing to think that manxnotebook has been up and running all these years. I couldn't believe it when you once told me you had input it all single-handedly! I take it that MNH have used you for advice on all this (er, or have they employed some pointy shoed salesman from across to tell 'em what they can do?)

 

Anyway, back to today's rose-tinted speech in Tynwald. It was all very well meaning I am sure, but they were talking about being able to word search on all the newspapers since the 1800s. I simply don't believe it. I have been using OCR for nearly 20 years and I don't reckon anything will successfully scan those old newspaper film.

 

I will be happy to be proved wrong.

 

Here's the request for money in Tynwald today:

9. Repair and Conversion - former Government Analyst’s Laboratory -

Hon P A Gawne MHK, Member of Manx National Heritage to move -

That Tynwald approves the Manx Museum and National Trust, known as

Manx National Heritage (MNH), incurring expenditure not exceeding the sum

of £1,171,652 in respect of the repair and conversion of the former Government

Analyst’s Laboratory.

 

 

 

I suppose that is just for the building work. I'm not sure about the cost of the equipment and digitisation etc.

[Frances]

digitisation of records has progressed considerably from my cottage industry slaveing over a hot scanner and poor OCR software; now a major industry by Google + mickeysoft etc - I too however doubt they can OCR from the early films (I couldn't even read sections of them) - however the later filming of the the Liberal (1840's) is excellent and probably would OCR well enough. But the newspapers of this period are reasonably well indexed - what it needs is the card index transcribed. Newspapers post 1850 have not been indexed.

 

However it isn't only old material that needs digitisation - for example much of the early TT literature can't stand constant handling and needs filming

 

I was told the idea was a family history centre - there is a Fam history soc library in Peel staffed by volunteers with very limited opening hours - it's a pity this couldn't have been built upon - however the Museum reading room has very limited facilities and is about 50% used by fam historians so would probably make sense to move these however staffing then becomes expensive

[bluemonday]

Put Frances in charge and get a Lottery grant to help with costs.

[Frances]

Put Frances in charge and get a Lottery grant to help with costs.

Applying for a lottery grant could be useful - however all I want is a nice quiet(!) booth with microfilm reader with access to affordable copying facilities (for me onto a CD Rom rather than dead trees) + access to indices (preferably online) with reasonably easy access to original material where necessary. There are many more suitable and better qualified people out there - catch is that basic research facilities have not had any real investment in last few years as all money has gone to the more visible House of Mannannan etc.

[Moghrey Mie]

Put Frances in charge and get a Lottery grant to help with costs.

Applying for a lottery grant could be useful - however all I want is a nice quiet(!) booth with microfilm reader with access to affordable copying facilities (for me onto a CD Rom rather than dead trees) + access to indices (preferably online) with reasonably easy access to original material where necessary. There are many more suitable and better qualified people out there - catch is that basic research facilities have not had any real investment in last few years as all money has gone to the more visible House of Mannannan etc.

 

 

This point was made in Tynwald yesterday. (by Quinton Gill I think) They need to get away from the idea that to provide any kind of service you need an imposing building. In the case of drugs and alcohol treatment they've got the building at the Strang but it's not providing in-patient services for people who want to get off drugs and alcohol.

David Cretney liked opening bus shelters.But it didn't mean the bus service was any good overall.