Scanning marathon

This morning the power was out because of an overnight thunder storm. So I went into Grand Rapids and scanned more than 300 pages of Zernikav onto my thumb drive. My goal is to have all 1100 pages of it entered by next week--I have about 300 more to go.

Then I face the next problem: how to turn the scans into a computer file. I have a copy of OmniPage Pro 14 that I've tried as an experiment. It won't recognize some of the characters from 18th century books, such as the fancy "s", the "ct", and the "ae". So I'm weighing the pros and cons of simply typing the entire 1100 pages, vs. scanning and a careful check.

But wait...there's more!

After teaching logic this morning, I strolled over to the library to continue scanning the microfilm's pages. I knew I was getting close to the end, because the table of contents had specified the starting pages of the various sections. So when I get to what I think is the end, I read "End of Part I."

Oh, dear.

Then I skimmed forward to the table of contents for Part II.

It appears the work has 2 parts, which I didn't know until today.

And the grand total of pages to be scanned, typed and translated is:

1100 pages.

I now know what I'm doing with the rest of my life.

18 June 2010, cont'd.: Opening page, scanned

Here's a copy of the opening page of the work, scanned in .jpg format:

18 June 2010

I scanned some 30 more pages at the GR public library the other day, bringing the total number of pages scanned to 373. Also, I've begun the tedious task of typing (how's that for alliteration?) the manuscript pages into a Nota Bene file. Why Nota Bene? It's capable of multiple levels/kinds of notes, and is well suited to academic works. Besides, I've had it for some years and want to learn better how to use the program.

As I skim the work when printing and numbering the pages, there is a fair amount that will doubtless seem tedious to the casual reader: Zernikav details the edition and page number(s) from which he culls his excerpts. When it comes time to translate such passages, I'm likely to put those details down as footnotes, rather than leaving them in the body of the text. I think that if Zernikav were writing today, that's how he'd do it. I'd also like to start compiling a list of the authors he cites, and try to find up-to-date editions of them in order to make it easier for those who wish to follow the trail of breadcrumbs to do so.

More scanning...

Today I scanned 100+ more pages into jpegs. The work is tedious, but a necessary step along the way. Once I get it all scanned (another 200 or so pages to go), I'll try to break it into pieces, and perhaps post a page or two to this blog.

It's underway...

On Monday, 7 June 2010 I went to the library and copied pdfs of the first 219 pages of the Zernikav microfilm to my thumb drive. I decided to use pdfs rather than jpgs, because after a test of each the pdfs appeared to have sharper resolution.