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 USMS History & Archives Committee

How to use the USMS Archives CD

This is a menu of the topics on this page (click on any):
If your computer is a PC and you want to look at swimming photos   
If your computer is a MacIntosh or an old PC and you want to look at swimming photos   
If you want to improve image annotation   
Reminders of things Carl will need to do   
Next Year (2004)   
Status & Chronology of improvements   .

The H&A Committee has created a new Archives CD which includes the Photo Gallery & USMS Archives. The purpose of this CD is to enable annotation and cataloguing to continue with an integrated and searchable database. People with a PC in good condition running an undamaged installation of Windows can use the CD. People with older computers or Mac's or whose installation of Windows or Internet Expoler is damaged are likely to have trouble.

Our new Archives CD can be used on a PC without instructions, but as you use it you'll have some questions. If you have a Mac, or if you have accepted the job of improving annotation, then you will need these instructions. This page will be continually updated as people give us comments, so look here if you have a question or problem. Send technical comments to Carl House. Please include Barbara Dunbar on any comments about whether or how this project should be continued in the future.

If your computer is a PC and you want to look at swimming photos

Your computer should automatically start when the CD is placed in the CD drive. (If it doesn't, then go to Start, Run, browse to d:\SwimPix\imgdb.exe, and execute it.) The following screen should come up.
imgdb

This screen is used both by the person who just wants to look at photos and also by the person improving annotation. If you enter information into any field (or multiple fields), the computer will use all the information it has to find images that qualify. It is very important to understand that you must remove any information that you don't want used. If you type June Krauser to see her photos and then type NEM into Club, the system will look for all the people named June Krauser in NEM and you won't get anything. Also remember that this system is case sensitive, so you must capitalize names correctly.

If your computer is a MacIntosh or an old PC and you want to look at swimming photos

 You will need to start at "d:\SwimPix\index.htm" (change "d" to whatever the drive letter is on your computer).

If you want to improve image annotation
  1. You have to do the following to get started the first time (and then never again hopefully).
    1. Drag and drop onto your desktop d:\SwimPix\imgdb.lnk and click on it. (This is a Windows "shortcut". It assumes that your CD drive is d:. If not, right click on the shortcut, left click properties, and change "d:" in two places to whatever your drive letter is.)
    2. The system will copy the imgdb.sf file into a new folder on your PC hard drive called "c:\SwimPix\". This is essential because nobody can change anything on the CD. When you improve image annotation, that file on your hard drive will get changed. In order for future releases of the CD to be improved by your work, you must send Carl that file with your improvements.
    3. You can put the shortcut anywhere you want it, but you do need it as "imgdb" has nothing in the Start, Programs menu.
    4. If you have any trouble doing this, call Carl.
  2. You will start any maintenance session by clicking on the shortcut. Then the same screen as above will come up. You will need to work one file at a time, and you can type it into the file name field.
  3. There is an easy way to select all images in a folder. Since you can do a partial-string search on a filename just like any other field, so just type in the folder name that you want (e.g. "Swim0392") in the "Filename" field and it'll get the whole folder.
  4. Another way to select all files in a folder would be to type the folder name into the comment field (because we put all the folder names into the comment field). Enter "Swim0392" into the "Comment" field and you'll get a list of all the images in the Nov-Dec'03 issue of Swim Magazine. Whoops, that was a long list, so to make the graphic smaller we searched on "Dunbar". Note that the existing annotation in four fields (Subject, Comment, Photographer, Copyright) appears along with the file name.
    imgdbedit

    If you want more help, you can go to /SwimPix/Swim0392/indexs.htm (when you get the CD) and you'll see all the images in that folder displayed with the image file name next to it. Of course, you must understand how we have named folders, but /SwimPix/sitemap.htm will help you on that (when you get the CD).
  5. Read our Principles for Annotation, here's what's most important.
    1. The most important information is name of Subject and name of Photographer.
    2. If more than one person, enter each persons name fully. If you enter Cav & Debbie Cavanaugh, people won't be able to find this image when searching on Cav Cavanaugh. To do right for searching, you must enter "Cav Cavanaugh; Debbie Cavanaugh". (semi-colon is better than comma).
    3. Remember that Carl can do batch processing, but there is no provision for that on the CD. That means that when Carl & Mel Dyck give releases on their 700 or so photographs, our maintenance person should not load them one at a time to mark the arrival of a release. Instead, ask Carl to do that on all 700 at once. Anytime the same procedure should be made for 20 or more images, you can ask Carl to do it.

Reminders of things Carl will need to do
  1. Improve instructions on the CD and on this page based on advice from Barbara, Marcia and other people.
  2. Document how to create the shortcut. Let's use "execute" symbol for normal apl development system. The "imgdb maintenance system" uses the dragonfly as icon and presently the "target" is (C:\APLWIN40\aplw.exe db="c:\SwimPix\qksource\imgdb.sf" ).
  3. The Archives CD does not include The Mucky Duck or Sydney2000 as an alternate (simpler) imgdb application for testing & learning.

Next Year (2004)
  1. Develop procedures for getting releases. Procedures might be different for USMS people than for professional photographers.
  2. To whom should we give Archive CD's ?
  3. Getting into all the content of this CD should be easier and more inviting in its appearance. The major options should be more evident and navigation to them should be easier.
  4. Technical improvements
    • Maybe we need an installation procedure for maintenance use (?)
    • A switch to make it optional for system to wipe criteria clean after each find would make browsing easier.
    • Improvements in editing procedure (?)
    • A function to audit data in imgdb.sf would help prevent time consuming errors.
    • Image documentation is now of the web images (indexs.htm); it should also document source art.
    • When you see or choose photo(s), you should also be able to jump to archives information on that swimmer. Archives information should have links to all photos. At present Archives only links to "Pix" photos.
    • What improvements are needed to support the effort to get releases and to learn what photos have releases.
    • There should be a function to ensure that all files in the Photo Gallery are enrolled in imgdb.sf.

Status & Chronology of improvements

 As of 11/22/03 we have 3482 images in the Photo Gallery. We have source art files for another 160 images which may be defective as we've not been able to process them. The subject is identified for 2469, photographer is identified in 1774, and some other copyright notation is entered for 475. This means that 1013 images cannot be "found" by the "imgdb" search procedure (because they are not annotated). Photographer is not identified for 1708 photos.

The following records successive versions of the USMS Archives CD. Dates refer to the date written on the CD label.

©Copyright 1997-2002 USMS.
All Rights Reserved
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