3.1178 microfilm->disk; Jewish mysticism; Nexis/Lexis (114)
Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Fri, 16 Mar 90 20:50:38 EST
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 1178. Friday, 16 Mar 1990.
(1) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 90 11:20:51 EST (23 lines)
From: lesk@thunder.bellcore.com (Michael E Lesk)
Subject: microfilm -> disk
(2) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 90 21:01:34 EST (16 lines)
From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 3.1176 microfilm -> disk? (21)
(3) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 90 12:03:21 GMT (7 lines)
From: stephen clark <AP01@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK>
Subject: jewish mysticism
(4) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 90 09:25:55 PST (39 lines)
From: kantere%biznet%ucsd.edu@Sdsc.BITnet
Subject: Nexis and Lexis
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 90 11:20:51 EST
From: lesk@thunder.bellcore.com (Michael E Lesk)
Somebody apparently wrote asking about transferring microfilm
to computer image. There are two vendors that I know of
(1) Mekel Engineering, 714-594-5158, sells a roll microfilm scanner
that will do about 2 seconds per image. I run it directly to a Sun
using an interface from Improvision, 415-653-5335. It costs $50K.
Mekel can probably point you to somebody who will do the job as a
service bureau.
(2) Downing Data, 212-929-4865, is a scanning service using their
own hardware. RTThey'll probably charge about 20 cents per image or
so to do the scanning, but you should get a quote from them.
I hope that the requestor has some conception of the storage volume
involved: a reel of microfilm can have up to 4000 images (although 1000
is typical) and each image, if it was dense printing to begin with, is
going to be a few hundred Kbyte even after compression. So his twenty
reels will become 4 Gbyte of storage.
Michael Lesk
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------27----
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 90 21:01:34 EST
From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 3.1176 microfilm -> disk? (21)
Mr. Donald has saved me the trouble of a similar
query. If there are any answers I would be
very grateful if they would come to Humanist
rather than directly to him.
(Our project is to digitize the Spanish-language
incunable editions in Spain's National Library
as the first step in trying to use OCR software
on them.)
Charles Faulhaber
UC Berkeley
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------16----
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 90 12:03:21 GMT
From: stephen clark <AP01@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK>
Subject: jewish mysticism
Scholem's *Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism* and other works.
Stephen
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------53----
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 90 09:25:55 PST
From: kantere%biznet%ucsd.edu@Sdsc.BITnet
Subject: Nexis and Lexis
Nexis and Lexis are full text online databases provided by
Mead Data Central -- a commercial vendor with very steep
charges. Nexis essentially contains newspapers, mostly from
the 1980s onward (including the New York Times),
newsletters, and other periodicals. Lexis is one of two
competing legal databases (the other is Westlaw) containing
the full text of legal codes, and appellate court and
administrative law decisions at the federal and state
levels, from far back until very current.
Very steep means something like 2-3 dollars per minute
connect time, plus hundreds of dollars a year for the
privilege of having an account. Law schools usually pay
a lump sum for unlimited use by their faculties and
students (the idea being to acculturate law students to the
use of Lexis as their law library). Law firms use and bill
the costs to their clients. News organizations spread out
the costs in their own ways.
University libraries without law schools (like the
University of Calif at San Diego), frequently decide the
$750 per year just for maintaining the account is too much
to pay at a time of falling state funding and the specter of
major rounds of journals cancellations.
---------------
Elliot Kanter
Central University Library
Research Services Department
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093
619-534-1263
kanter@ucsd