Electricity Journals
Jennifer Banks (jsbanks) and Michelle Baildon (baildon)
In 1990 the MIT Libraries received funding from NEH to microfilm 39 journal titles (approximately 1350 volumes) dating from 1820-1930s related to the history of electricity, transportation, and science. These titles were selected as a high priority because of their value to the scholarly community and because they were not available on microfilm.
These titles were microfilmed in B&W; however, some of the journals contain color illustrations or ads. Unlike copies held by other institutions, our physical copies do not have the advertisements removed, which makes them more valuable to researchers. Now that color scanning is the norm, it would be ideal to have this content available online and in color.
During the past 20 years, some of the journals were digitized by other institutions to varying quality standards and with varying completeness, searchability, and accessibility. Titles from the University of Michigan, Harvard, NYPL, and other institutions are available online through the Hathi Trust and Google.
Preliminary research has found three titles (approximately 82 bibliographic volumes) that are not available online. Eight additional titles (133 volumes) are partially available online through the Hathi Trust or Google, and the MIT Libraries holds the volumes that the scanning institution lacks in print.
We propose to digitize these volumes. We are considering scanning from the microfilm (B&W) or from the original physical volume. If the latter, the scans would be in grayscale or color to improve the usability of photographs and color illustrations.
Further work could be done to assess the quality and usability of the online images of the remaining titles. If a title is not freely accessible or is of poor readability, we could digitize it ourselves at a higher standard and make it available through DOME, the Internet Archive, or a similar portal that provides free public access.
Book, microfilm
Barton records
<1923
1864-1922
Some volumes are oversized and were originally bound in thick volumes. Some of these thicker volumes were cut into sections in 1990 to facilitate microfilming. A few volumes do not meet OCA’s size and condition guidelines, but PCS has confirmed with OCA that they can scan these items but might need to increase the cost to $0.25 a page in those cases.
Our physical copies do not have the advertisements removed, which makes them more valuable to researchers.
NOTES
The Street Railway Gazette
Electricity Journals
went to OCA on Wednesday, June 2nd