Greetings Jim,
The sheer volume of the books you present would seem to necessitate a number of people working together to capture those wonderful books to record here and provide access to the future generations of readers.
I try to provide the best scans I can with the meager tools I work with which ends up taking a bit of time per book but feel it worth the investment as the scans circle the globe and may last a long time if not infinitely.
I say this as I offer my service to help scan some of your books, if needed. for placement here on GAC.
I'm located in northeastern Ohio so this would involve trust as well as postage costs. I would be willing to pay postage costs to and from for the books seeing you have opened your collection to the public and that is an admirable thing.
Seeing the large number of books you have available and conversations during earlier threads from a month or so back suggesting a group fund to purchase certain books for scanning and placement here on site
perhaps a fund could be developed among the many members to provide the monies needed for postage costs and insurances in respect to the transfer of the books to and fro if you are inclined to use the mails in the event a west coast scanner cannot be found. These are just thoughts to get the ball rolling.
I'm still rather new to the site and scanning having come on board the April of this year I believe it was, but have managed to scan something like 20 or so books and think I have the basics down for doing a presentable scan tho' not of the higher caliber of some scanners that post here.
To sample some of the books I have scanned you could look up KO KOMICS or run thru a thread titled 'Coming Soon'
in the Comics Loaded folder
which is where I place the notice for the bulk of the books I scan to FTP in order to contact Yoc or Aussies so they can place them on site.
The condition of the books is not important to the scan in that many can be doctored up fairly well from the spine wear, tears, ink smears, creases, writing, rat chews and what have you commonly found on reader copies.
What I would NOT be interested in scanning are very fine shaped books that might carry a higher dollar value on ebay or Heritage auction sites in that I would not want to be responsible for opening a higher grade book for scanning and inadvertenly cause a staple crease that might devalue the book.
I have a personal appreciation to the sci-fi and the superhero genre and would enjoy working with those type books over any others but it would seem to better serve the site if Aussie, Yoc, and the other mods were to join heads over what PD books might best be scanned first.
Anyhow, regardless of what transpires, I can say the offer of your collection to scan is appreciated and I'm sure many fellow readers would echo the same.
Cheers
-rez
I'm Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr, and I just joined.
I figured that it would be better to have a separate topic where people can address me without wading through nine pages of "How did you find us?" entries. Someone (or two) have already asked me about some Fox inside front covers. I'll confess that Fox is not the deepest company in my collection and I'm unlikely to have the issues requested. Sorry.
What I AM open to is the possibility of finding some trustworthy soul in the US who would be willing to scan comics in my collection. I'm NOT a condition freak and most of my comics are not even in plastic bags. I USE them regularly and the thought of not being able to just open up a box and rifle through the books is pretty foreign to me.
Plus, I am NOT afraid to send them through the mail. I'm currently in the midst of a project reviewing the output of the Lloyd Jacquet Studios from around 1943-1948. I'm not looking at the big companies like Fawcett and Timely, but rather Continental, Croydon, Rewl, and the like. Once I've reviewed all of the material in the books and updated my IDs on note cards, I will mail all of them to Arkansas for Hames Ware to review and add to or correct the IDs.
If there is some list member in the San Francisco Bay Area that would be willing to put in the scanning time, I'd be more than willing to provide the raw material - pending my availability, that is. I spend about 1/4 of each year out of the country and we'd have to arrange connections. Otherwise, I'd consider mailing them to a trustworthy destination. If someone would be willing to split the postage costs, that would be very helpful, too.
BUT the offer is there. If anyone is interested, please let me know and also let me know what comic runs are most needed.