Status of USMS Archives
Here's an example of how the archives work. Mel Goldstein & Babs Larsen provided information about Irving Merritt who was critical to the founding of Greater Indianapolis Masters Swimming. He had been "unidentified" before Mel's information was available. Irving Merritt's name now shows up at the bottom of the GRIN club page at the bottom of the Indiana LMSC page on the page where we keep information on the dates people pass away (when we have it) on the page where we remember people of his age who have passed on: on the page where we list the men of his age who have ever been named All-American.
We have "identified" all of our current Record Holders, all All-Americans who have had lots of All-American designations, all recipients of major awards from USMS, and all national officers since the begining in 1972. We also have all Top Ten achievements since 1993. This is a lot of information on 14038 Masters swimmers. We have the ability to bring up from the web all these achievements and contributions to USMS. And, we can bring up what we have on any of these 14038 people with a single uncomplicated URL. The process by which this was done is documented at USMS Archives (p) and USMS Archives (h).
We believe that the total number of "All-Americans Ever" (named by USMS) is 4009. But some of these are probably still the same person under two different names.
There are still 6 All-Americans about whom all we know is their first initial and last name. There are still 190 All-Americans who are not claimed by any LMSC. There are 326 All-Americans whose birthday we don't know.
The most important improvements in our information from now on will come as local USMS people claim their All-Americans and as our members clarify their information.
We are now receiving all the photos published in Swim Magazine since 1995. This will be about 1800 photos on 30 CD-ROMs; we've already received 21 CDs with 1288 photos. These will produce photos good enough to print in newspapers and magazines for USMS publicity purposes provided that we get the appropriate permissions. (Most of the photos we have in the Photo Gallery are not good enough to place in print media.) Our next major project for USMS Archives will be to put these into a form where they can be scattered throughout the pages of the USMS web site to make it more interesting.
Our next need for volunteers will be for two jobs. One is to type stories from our printed Archives so they can be put in our on-line Archives. The second volunteer job is for people to help build a catalogue of all these photos by comparing our databases with their copies of Swim Magazine to identify swimmers and photographers. The photos are identified by their location in the magazine and we'll need to add descriptions of what is in them and who should get credit and be asked permission for use.
I'll also start doing some things to make the web presentation more modern and exciting. For example, I'd like for different photos to appear each time you sign onto the site. If you click "refresh" the photos will change. That won't happen quickly, but I know how to do it and it will be fun. The Mucky Duck will also finally get implemented for goal setting and evaluation and to liven up our archives by making them more interactive and personal.
by Carl House, Web Steward
