New First World War Digital Archive launches - The Ogilby Muster

[johntaylor]

Hi, I mentioned that I'd sent an email to the Ogilby Muster team to make them aware of this discussion, and I'm pleased to say I had a very quick and positive response from them. They are highly receptive to the various points we raised (such as a function to allow browsing by document within each museum, and a possible subscription model to offset the high cost of downloading individual documents).

They've promised to investigate these suggestions and to keep us updated as more museums come on board. In the meantime, if anyone has further ideas for improvements to the site then I would invite you to share them here as they will be following the conversation.

Thanks again to jaykayu for highlighting this project, and to everyone else who's contributed so far.

All the best, John

[ss002d6252]

18 minutes ago, johntaylor said:

Hi, I mentioned that I'd sent an email to the Ogilby Muster team to make them aware of this discussion, and I'm pleased to say I had a very quick and positive response from them. They are highly receptive to the various points we raised (such as a function to allow browsing by document within each museum, and a possible subscription model to offset the high cost of downloading individual documents).

They've promised to investigate these suggestions and to keep us updated as more museums come on board. In the meantime, if anyone has further ideas for improvements to the site then I would invite you to share them here as they will be following the conversation.

Thanks again to jaykayu for highlighting this project, and to everyone else who's contributed so far.

All the best, John

Excellent. Always good to see a positive engagment.

Craig

[jaykayu]

1 hour ago, johntaylor said:

Hi, I mentioned that I'd sent an email to the Ogilby Muster team to make them aware of this discussion, and I'm pleased to say I had a very quick and positive response from them. They are highly receptive to the various points we raised (such as a function to allow browsing by document within each museum, and a possible subscription model to offset the high cost of downloading individual documents).

They've promised to investigate these suggestions and to keep us updated as more museums come on board. In the meantime, if anyone has further ideas for improvements to the site then I would invite you to share them here as they will be following the conversation.

Thanks again to jaykayu for highlighting this project, and to everyone else who's contributed so far.

All the best, John

Cheers John, Thanks for raising it with them

J

[Moonraker]

On 06/11/2021 at 16:11, Moonraker said:

... I wonder if some of us will get in the habit of referring newbies (and not-so-newbies) to the Muster?

Can I be the first to link to a specific item here.

Not in response to anyone's query, but it seemed worthwhile adding it to a thread to which I contributed ten years ago.

[charlie962]

14 minutes ago, Moonraker said:

Can I be the first to link to a specific item

I'm afraid I beat you to it with post2 re Enlistment Registers. But I do agree it would be useful to highlight useful searches. I suspect there may be a facility lurking on AMOT under 'Projects' but I've not fathomed it out yet.

Charlie

PS I suspect we can all go back through our old threads and add useful links like yours. It is a resource that has already produced some excellent results for me. Well done AMOT. I look forward to a subscription scheme?

 

Edited 10 November , 2021 by charlie962

[QUEX]

Is it me, or do others find this source profoundly irritating?

As far as I can see there are absolutely no finding aids.  Since the contributing museums had presumably  cataloged their collections I would have thought this would have been a simple addition.

Reading a multipage document is 'clunky' (understatement) - perhaps I'm doing it wrong. 

Whacking search terms into the thing and then trying to sort out which thumbnail might be of interest isn't my idea of fun - I would far rather be presented with a list of documents that contain my search term/s and take it from there.

I was really excited by TOM - its not lasted.

 

 

[charlie962]

It is clumsy but there are tricks that make it slightly less clumsy. The catalogue ofdescriptions are sometimes good, sometimes non existent. I assume it is early days. I have found a number of excellent records ( diaries, photos etc) uploaded by RA museum and am just grateful I can access them. So my enthusiasm hasn't worn off yet.

AMOT do need to get their pricing sorted. I would suggest a basic sub to read the files and a fee for copies without watermark. Text files should include a number of pages for one fee. Unique photos could justify the one-off 3.50.

I would be happy if it remains free access as now but I think the museum's need to see a revenue stream that will see encourage more museums to join and existing ones to upload more archives .

Charlie

[ss002d6252]

15 minutes ago, charlie962 said:

AMOT do need to get their pricing sorted. I would suggest a basic sub to read the files and a fee for copies without watermark. Text files should include a number of pages for one fee. Unique photos could justify the one-off 3.50.

Yep, that would be the perfect way.

Craig

[QUEX]

1 hour ago, charlie962 said:

It is clumsy but there are tricks that make it slightly less clumsy. The catalogue ofdescriptions are sometimes good, sometimes non existent. I assume it is early days. I have found a number of excellent records ( diaries, photos etc) uploaded by RA museum and am just grateful I can access them. So my enthusiasm hasn't worn off yet.

AMOT do need to get their pricing sorted. I would suggest a basic sub to read the files and a fee for copies without watermark. Text files should include a number of pages for one fee. Unique photos could justify the one-off 3.50.

I would be happy if it remains free access as now but I think the museum's need to see a revenue stream that will see encourage more museums to join and existing ones to upload more archives .

Charlie

I would certainly be happy to pay a subscription for better searching/viewing, and in addition pay the full page price for anything I wanted to actually use in some way.

[Colin W Taylor]

I'd agree regarding indexing and pricing.

Another problem is that there is no way of knowing when museums add content (which must be encouraged) unless you follow a specific regimental museum and search regularly. A search one week might reveal a lot less than one a few weeks later.

The more interest it gets the more museums will upload and this may encourage more regiments to participate. However, I'm not averse to visiting archives and museums and some may not want to upload their archive crown jewels to the internet for free access.

There is lots of potential in the site, however. 

[charlie962]

8 hours ago, Colin W Taylor said:

However, I'm not averse to visiting archives and museums and some may not want to upload their archive crown jewels to the internet for free access.

'For free' would be wrong given the fragile finances of museums. A trip to the museum costs a fair sum just paying for the journey, so the saving of time and money by accessing via the internet should be shared with the museum that has incurred the expense of digitisation.

The biggest collection of all, the IWM seems to go too far in protecting their crown jewels by even further restricting reading room access. Can you imagine them taking the leap to AMOT ?? What about NAM? Surely there is a business model that suits all?

You can be sure the original donors would have wished the widest access possible.

Well done AMOT for launching the idea.

Charlie

[Coldstreamer]

Thanks for sharing . Worth having a trawl for sure 

[Colin W Taylor]

Charlie, 

I too would rather see a subscription as a user. However, the problem is how the money generated could be divided up fairly to the relevant museums. At present, though it costs £3.50 to download a page they can be viewed for free making the site equally unsustainable and less conducive to further uploads. 

I think the IWM and NAM are off to one side and would not suit the AMOT construct. 

I think it is an excellent idea but the charging / access system need re-examination to best financially support the museums that engage.

C

[charlie962]

5 minutes ago, Colin W Taylor said:

how the money generated could be divided

It cannot simply be on the basis of number of records because any old printed book could be scanned in. There must be some way of measuring the hits on a particular museum's records? Eg every time one clicks on an image to get a closer view interim view. I mean at the level where you can read the doc , not the next level where you order the doc.

Charlie

[RedCoat]

Well, I used TOM last night and found 36 references to my Great Grandfather in the Royal Artillery archive. Not only do the records fill in the last 5 years of his career - which were missing from his service records, I also discovered 2 new photos of him with the Royal Artillery Cricket team. 

I am really looking forward to seeing what else the Royal Artillery Museum uploads - surely the must be more photos to come?!

Cheers

[charlie962]

1 hour ago, RedCoat said:

surely the must be more photos to come?!

That is certainly only a part of their ww1 collection!

[ss002d6252]

11 hours ago, charlie962 said:

It cannot simply be on the basis of number of records because any old printed book could be scanned in. There must be some way of measuring the hits on a particular museum's records? Eg every time one clicks on an image to get a closer view interim view. I mean at the level where you can read the doc , not the next level where you order the doc.

Charlie

They could certainly monitor the clicks on the site and tally up the figures for each institution.

Craig

[charlie962]

So some sort of mix of the two, to encourage volume of records and also quality. 

Is the trust financing the hosting? Or is this a significant additional cost to the museum.

11 hours ago, Colin W Taylor said:

think the IWM and NAM are off to one side and would not suit the AMOT construct

I understand but their combined strength would be of enormous benefit to all, particularly to us, the 'customers'. Surely they should all be working together to provide basic easy access to archives?

[ss002d6252]

11 minutes ago, charlie962 said:

 

Is the trust financing the hosting? Or is this a significant additional cost to the museum.

It looks like they don't fund the actual digitisation costs itself
 

Quote

MOT will not fund
- Staff costs, including salaries for new or existing staff
- Ongoing museum costs such as software updates or equipment replacement
- Costs associated with retail projects, such as the purchasing of tills or stock
- Digitisation of collections, both object and archival
- Re-enactors
- Perishable items, such as catering for events

Craig

[johntaylor]

Hi,

I would encourage everyone to keep posting their comments (including criticisms) here - as mentioned previously, I contacted the organisers who were very receptive and keen to receive feedback from users. I think we all recognise that this is a tremendous resource, but it's still early days and a lot more work is needed to refine the search, download and payment functionality, not to mention encouraging even more museums to take part.

As an aside, I noticed that one museum had uploaded an entire Soldier's Bible - not just the first page with the owner's details, but the whole thing from start to finish. While I applaud their thoroughness, I'm not sure many people would be willing to pay £3.50 a page!

John

[charlie962]

Another thought. Is there anything we can do at a distance to add value to this archive or improve the cataloguing?

I do think the visibility given to these archives and the idea that they could generate a revenue stream for the museums may encourage people to donate records and research to a museum of choice that participates on AMOT, knowing that it will not just gather dust in a cupboard.

Charlie 

PS. We have already posted several comments and ideas. How will we get feedback?

 

[QUEX]

I've spent a couple of weeks hammering this source. 

It is very good at finding digitised pages that contain your search terms and I appreciate that for anybody looking for, say, mentions of an individual, particularly one with a distinctive name, in e.g. war diaries, that may be perfectly sufficient, but beyond that it has some weaknesses. 

For me, the main one is the lack of any facility to find and read multi-page documents as a single entity. What I mean by that is if my search term turns up a page from a training pamphlet I can't click on something that presents me with that pamphlet as a single document in order for me to see the context of that search term. I have to cut and paste the image reference, stick in a wild card to recover a range of pages, and then work through the resultant thumbnails to reconstruct the document. This does not make for easy research. Neither does the lack of catalouge descriptions until you open a thumbnail - some of us like browsing catalouges, they spark new avenues of research. 

I'm the first to admit I'm an IT klutz and there are probably better ways of working, and I'll also admit to maybe being set in my research ways. But at the moment TOM isn't, for me at least, an easy source to use.

If it was easier to use I would happily pay a subscription on the level of Ancestry/FMP.  I know that maybe not suitable for everybody, but perhaps a scale of subscriptions giving different periods of access would be possible.

And for the avoidance of doubt I applaud the idea, I just have some problems with the execution.

[Moonraker]

I found that, by changing the last digit in the page title in the address bar, one could work backwards and forwards through a multi-page article, as in https://www.theogilbymuster.com/record/1087338.

Changing t he "8" to "7" takes one to the preceding page, to "9" the following page.

It's trial & error when trying to find the first page and I think that not all articles may have an "address" that ends in a digit.

[charlie962]

I use same technique and it works well. OK, often my search takes me to an interior page of a document so have to go backwards and forwards. Clumsy but the treasure is worth the digging.

A real problem is no catalogue to browse, as Quex said. And many docs are described in an uninformative manner.

But I rest positive and I will certainly persevere.

[David Porter]

I have the catalogues for the Royal Artillery Museum collection. But it has been admitted that "the catalogue entries on much of our material aren’t as detailed as they could be". 
Anyway, as a broad guide:

The MD collection, the largest one, contains papers and records of former Gunners and officers.
The AL collection contains photographs and photograph albums
The MR collection contains ‘military reports’ (in quite a loose sense)
The RA collection contains records of ‘Regimental Associates’ – organisations related to the Royal Artillery in some way
The UR collection contains unit records

MD Class List.pdfAL Class List.pdfMR Class List.pdfRA List.pdfUR List.pdf