Re: [PAF] Multimedia files organization

[Cheryl Singhal <csinghal@CapAccess.org>]

On Wed, 28 Feb 2001, Thomas B. Lerman wrote:

> Thank you Cheryl and Dave for your comments. Here are my thoughts on your
> comments and I am still looking for more comments.
> 
> I feel that disk space is cheap enough that I can include scanned in images,
> yet keep hard copies. This has the advantages of both worlds. At this point,
> my options seem to be the following:
> 1)    No soft copy of many things (Cheryl)

No, not quite.  I have lots of "soft" copies which were made for the sole 
purpose of e-mailing to someone or putting on-line.  And occasionally, 
one *can* twiddle the contrast enough to make an almost-illegible 
document almost-legible.  I discourage the practice now epidemic of 
keeping ONLY digital copies.  It isn't a question of IF something goes 
electronically wrong, it's only a question of How Soon.

And then there's the issue of the social value of sitting with an album 
in your lap paging through it with the grandkids.  Somehow kids actually 
do notice that this photo is more yellow than that, or that one is on 
heavy cardboard.  That is lost on a monitor.  And, having all too 
frequently needed to look up something within minutes of turning the 
computer off, I can only imagine how frustating it would get to have to 
have the computer on to recheck a death certificate.  

(You see, when we first got a scanner, I actually tried a lot of this; 
lost 85M of digital data when a ZIP disc developed amnesia, another 120M 
when something technical went wrong with a disc partition during defrag; 
I currently have, I think, 5 copies of 20 photos cluttering up the HD 
because I keep forgetting to dele 'em from the scanner directory and not 
remembering what name I saved 'em under -- or if I saved them.  I am not 
looking forward to sitting there while each file loads, writing down the 
name and description, and then loading another file, so I can see if it's 
the same file.  Unless you are 1000% organized, and NEVER EVER have to 
leave something in the middle (say the phone rings, or the smoke alarm 
goes off, or the spouse needs you to hold the ladder, or the drier 
buzzed), you will sooner or later end up doing massive amounts of 
housekeeping.)

> 2)    Everything in one directory

Makes it easy to find.


> 3)    Directories divided up by surname (actual surname or soundex?)

Depends.  Do you have any surnames that share a soundex?  If not, and if 
you're back at least 6 generations, Soundex has possibilities.  But ... 
an awful lot of surnames share a Soundex -- Crosby, Cresap, and Crazy 
Bull all turn up in the same Soundex code.

> 4)    Directories divided up by image type (photographs, birth certificates,
> marriage certificates, etc.)

OK, maybe regimented is a better word than organized. (g)



> Then after the directory, come up with a filename format that contains the
> following elements:
> 1)    Individual or family (marriage identification)
>     a) RIN or MRIN (Dave and actually is what I am currently doing. However,
> the thing that I am concerned about is if during merges or anything else,
> the RIN/MRIN changes. Also, this may not make any sense to anyone else).
> Family information would probably be stored with a MRIN.

It's the merges and upgrading that will kill this.  ESPECIALLY if you 
have to use GEDCOM to migrate data for any reason.

>     b)    Surname and/or firstname (either actual or soundex)
> 2)    Image type. Such as photo, birth/marriage/death certificate, social
> security application, immigration/naturalization record, etc.
> 
> Any thoughts??? Yes, I am trying to get more response from this.

Hmmmm.... so a typical path might go:

C:\images\birthcertificates\thomas\MRIN4325ThomasSteve.tiff
or
C:\images\immigration\RIN4371\GetzdannerGustav1.tiff

Or worse yet  
C:\paf5\data\THOMAS\images\birthcertificates\ThomasSteve\R8765Minn.tiff


Yes, I'm being Devil's Advocate here, hoping to stir the rest of you up 
some. (g)

Cheryl
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