Scanning question (Is destruction of old tech docs a moral crime?)

[Warner Losh]

On Sun, Jul 21, 2019, 4:16 AM Joseph S. Barrera III via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:

> I'd suggest that in 2019 when bits are cheap and high-quality scanners
> nearly as cheap, "crappy quality digital image" is a bit of a straw man.
> Yes, I've seen plenty of barely-readable or practically unreadable scans,
> but they were made years or decades ago.
>
> What dpi qualifies as not "crappy"? 300dpi? 400? 600?
>

I just scanned my Rainbow 100 User's Manual at 300, 600 and 1200dpi using
the scansnap default settings. You see a jump between 300 and 600, but
little difference going on up to 1200 for this material. I posted the
300dpi results and even they are acceptable. Some of the diagrams look
heavier than the 600dpi version and at high zoom you see pixelated letters,
where the 600 doesn't. The 1200 is hard to see any big difference and takes
4x as long to scan. I think I'll be scanning the remaining rainbow docs at
600dpi. The file is 22MB vs 12MB, so that's worth it. The 1200dpi version
was almost 70MB which is starting to get a bit large for a 60 sheet
document. The sweet spot seems to be 600dpu, at least for this material.

Warner

On Sat, Jul 20, 2019 at 8:00 PM Guy Dunphy via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org
> >
> wrote:
>
> > I'm posting a private email (anonymized) and my reply because it's a
> > significant issue.
> >
> >
> > >{Note private reply}
> > >
> > >    > When the scanning process involves destruction of the original
> work
> > >    > ... But if it's a rare document, or even maybe so rare that it's
> the
> > >    > last one, then destroying it now just to produce a digital copy
> > >    > inadequate to the aims of cultural preservation - that's a crime.
> > >    > One right up there with genocide
> > >
> > >While I agree that making a non-optimal digital copy in such cases, is,
> > >well, non-optimal (because for _many uses_, the basic information is
> still
> > >available, wheras for many important documents, not even that remains),
> > >there's no way it's "right up there with genocide" - and if you really
> > >think so, you definitely need to examine your sense of scale, because
> it's
> > >seriously defective.
> > >
> > >       [name removed]
> >
> > I agree that when historical documents are lost without even any kind of
> > digital copy made, that's the worst.
> >
> > However I was pretty careful to preceded that quoted paragraph with
> > conditionals.
> >
> > Specifically referring to a case where someone has a rare work, that
> isn't
> > in danger of falling apart, and there's no good reason why they couldn't
> > wait till better scanning methods became available, and they destroy it
> to
> > produce a crappy quality digital image. Thus ensuring there can never be
> > a high quality digital copy and the rare physical original is forever
> gone.
> > That's criminal. A high level crime against humankind. Where it's done in
> > bulk to entire collections, it _is_ the cultural equivalent of genocide.
> >
> > I don't care if you disagree.
> > Could it be that you are upset because you do this (destroy docs), and
> > don't
> > like to be accused of being a criminal?
> > I am sure that the future WON'T take your position on this. They are
> going
> > to be sooo pissed, that so many old works were destroyed and all they
> have
> > left is crappy quality horrible-looking two-tone scans.
> >
> > This is _already_ the case with many electronics instrument manuals.
> There
> > are
> > so many people who think that the physical manuscript is unimportant, and
> > nothing
> > matters other than posting a minimally readable smallest-possible-file
> > online,
> > with the least effort and so it's OK to destroy the original for
> > convenience.
> >
> > Private reply noted. Still going to repost on the list, as from anon.
> >
> > Guy
> >
> >
>