The new catalog section, and the work I have ahead

JohnMarcson

Administrator
May 7, 2010
10,971
Northwest Ohio
Jman is busy making a better more centralized catalog section, I am getting to work scanning my catalogs. The picture is just my non-duplicate Whelen stuff. I have an equal number of binders of the the other companies combined. I will try to get these scanned as fast as I can. We are looking at thousands of catalogs and tens of thousands of pages

IMG_20220109_203146357.jpg
 

JohnMarcson

Administrator
May 7, 2010
10,971
Northwest Ohio
If anyone has any tips for scanning books/catalogs without ruining the spines/bindings I'd love to know. I will call local and university libraries. I hate to ruin the catalogs scanning them, but I also want a high quality document.
 

firebuff17

Member
Mar 28, 2011
774
CT
Let me preface by saying I am not a computer guy.
But can you take photos of them, and when you upload them to your computer save them to the computer as a pdf?

But I am patiently awaiting your document library.
 
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JohnMarcson

Administrator
May 7, 2010
10,971
Northwest Ohio
Let me preface by saying I am not a computer guy.
But can you take photos of them, and when you upload them to your computer save them to the computer as a pdf?

But I am patiently awaiting your document library.
Yeah, that's the fall back if the scanning doesn't pan out. My wife works at a university and says they have scanners for books, so I'm hopeful.
 
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JohnMarcson

Administrator
May 7, 2010
10,971
Northwest Ohio
I found an affordable scanner meant for books and magazines online, we will see how it works. Jman has the sections of the site all set up. I'll try to get get things scanned as soon as I can. We are looking at thousands of pages. Also, anyone who has jpgs or other catalog files scanned, I can convert them to PDF which is the format we are using. I will let everyone know when we are ready. It probably makes sense to let me get mine all done first as there are likely duplicates.
 

Carlos SpicyWeiner

Lifetime VIP Donor
May 3, 2012
5,233
Lakeland, Florida
you should get ahold of @JazzDad and find out what spy camera/scanner he used when he broke into Weiner Enterprises and scanned all of our sensitive weiner info. There has to be something that would allow you to scan them fairly quickly
 
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JohnMarcson

Administrator
May 7, 2010
10,971
Northwest Ohio
Never intended to create all this work for you guys but sincerely appreciate the effort! Will be great to have one repository for all this reference material.

The catalog archive was a mess, we needed someone to gently shove us into fixing it.
 
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Tango7

Member
Jul 7, 2020
186
Chicago Metro Area
IIRC I have a 1980's Darley catalog in storage. If it would be useful, when I see it next I can scan the pages with warning stuff on them into PDF and send them in...
 
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JohnMarcson

Administrator
May 7, 2010
10,971
Northwest Ohio
IIRC I have a 1980's Darley catalog in storage. If it would be useful, when I see it next I can scan the pages with warning stuff on them into PDF and send them in...
Yeah, I will take any light catalogs or tech manuals in PDF form.
 
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JohnMarcson

Administrator
May 7, 2010
10,971
Northwest Ohio
The book scanner arrives tomorrow evening, I work Friday. I am looking at digging into some scanning on Saturday and Sunday. The scanner I got should speed the process up a lot. The Whelen stuff will take priority (that's the binders pictured). I have a pretty complete history of Whelen catalogs from 1970ish to 2005. I also have lots of install guides, single sheet product documents and specific product brochures. After that I have and equal amount of all the other companies combined. The way these will be archived is pretty cool, it's like a virtual online catalog.

Anyone with contributions the preferred format is PDF, but I can convert good quality JPGs. We can share the larger files through google drive.
 

JohnMarcson

Administrator
May 7, 2010
10,971
Northwest Ohio
I have scanned into PDF form (raw JPGs retained as well) just over 2500 pages of Whelen catalogs from the 1970s to 2009. I am waiting for Jman to upload them into the viewing utility, which could be a few weeks, he is a busy guy. Until then here is a teaser of some of the catalogs.


image00006.jpgimage00007.jpgimage00008.jpg
image00014.jpgimage00007.jpgimage00015.jpgimage00040.jpgimage00017.jpgimage00018.jpg
 

JohnMarcson

Administrator
May 7, 2010
10,971
Northwest Ohio
I have scanned into PDF form (raw JPGs retained as well) just over 2500 pages of Whelen catalogs from the 1970s to 2009. I am waiting for Jman to upload them into the viewing utility, which could be a few weeks, he is a busy guy. Until then here is a teaser of some of the catalogs.

Each catalog is full multi-page PDF and there are over 2500 pages total and I haven't even started in on Federal or Code 3 yet. There are way more than pictured below; everything from full catalogs to brochures to product sheets to tech schematics.

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stansdds

Member
May 25, 2010
3,533
U.S.A., Virginia
over 2500 pages scanned? Holy cow! But this will be a fantastic repository of information once completed.
 

JohnMarcson

Administrator
May 7, 2010
10,971
Northwest Ohio
over 2500 pages scanned? Holy cow! But this will be a fantastic repository of information once completed.
I have probably about an equal number yet to do representing Federal, Code 3, and others. Then I have to go searching for the electronic ones (catalogs I never had a hard copy of) and get those sorted. All in all it's going well, I can't wait to share them all. After that we will open the floor for submissions of stuff you guys have that I don't.
 
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