IWM archive losses material
 

I'm interested in obtaining copies of the Luftwaffe losses list held at the IWM. In the educated opinions of the members here, would that be a worthwhile avenue of research? In other words, are the records held there of high quality or just poor quality scans of the originals that can't be read?

I live and work in London and being a graphic designer, I have experience with scanners and producing high quality digital documents. I also have some free time on my hands these days and would be more than willing to look into contacting the IWM with the possible intention of scanning these documents and making them available online for everyone. I don't see any issue with copyright laws. I understand that this information was made available via cd's for sale years ago. It's not my intention to make a profit out this at all though, I'm merely interested in obtaining some info for myself and thought that I could benefit everyone at the same time.

Is that something that would be of interest? and does anyone here have any advise about how I can the ball rolling?

Thanks
Ben

Re: IWM archive losses material
 

Here's a little information. At the time I bought them from the IWM 25 years ago, they only came in one format: 35 mm microfilm retailed at $90 U.S. per roll, of which there were 12 rolls in all. The paper copies were returned to the FRD in the early 1970s. IWM at this time only has them in the film format, I think.

Meanwhile, in Deutschland, BA-MA Freiburg sells them to researchers in microfiche or 35 mm reel format. The researcher had a choice.

Within the past 10 years or so, they have also become available in CD format, but I do not know from whom.

L.

Re: IWM archive losses material
 

Thank you Larry!
So, do you think that if I managed to work with the IWM in scanning the microfilm and uploading the data to a free online source that that would be worthwhile or not?
I'm new to this and am unsure whether this information is what I personnaly need to answer the questions I have because I've never seen it but like I said, I'm willing to take this on as a project if the demand is there. If it is, I can phone the IWM tommorrow to discuss.
Cheers
Ben

Re: IWM archive losses material
 

I think you are doing exactly the right thing, Ben, in soliciting opinion here before proceeding. Hopefully, enough of the members will express their thoughts to give you some idea of the demand for what you propose.

Personally, I think researchers would much, much prefer to work with your scans that with the film or fiche, these being cumbersome as well as requiring the purchase of microfilm equipment.

However, the fly in the ointment may be the IWM. They may have some licensing rights to the film and not want a competitor unless the competitor pays them a fee.

Larry

Re: IWM archive losses material
 

Ben: I have a friend who wishes to get rid of his fiche copies if that helps?

Re: IWM archive losses material
 

I think a lot of people would be interested to be able to consult these files on line.

Regards,
Rudi.

Re: IWM archive losses material
 

Thanks for the responses guys. I will contact the IWM in regards to getting this project off the ground.

Re: IWM archive losses material
 

Hi,

If you want info about the losses in Freiburg ( A 4 Format copies) I can help you.

Eduardo.

Re: IWM archive losses material
 

Hi.

I have already scanned the loss records available from fiche and IWM films (using the best version as there is considerable quality differences from the different sets of copies), and my team is currently on the home stretch with regards to entering it all into a relational database.

Making it all available online for free... maybe in the future when the copyright issues have been cleared. With regards to the Bundesarchiv rules they are pretty clear, regardless of what members of this board and others online seem to believe, the Bundesarchiv strictly sell their copies with a clause that the person or party purchasing it is not allowed to make copies available for a third party.

As with all copyright this is of course true for a direct copy, digital or other, but a reworked version (like using the information and entering it into a manuscript or a database) will not be (at least according to the lawyers I have consulted) covered by the copyright.

So - to ensure a possibility also in the future to use the research facilities in both establishments I have decided to play by the rules they have set and that I in fact agreed to when I purchased the material.

Also - a word of advice - the 35mm films might work with a really good scanner, the fiche versions are considerably smaller in footprint, and in order to get anywhere with that source you must use a microfilm/microfiche scanner.

The person or persons working on microfilming the records that ended up at IWM was definitely quite bored from time to time, and the result show this quite clearly. The same more or less goes for the BA material, some pages are out of focus, and some unreadable due to this or the fact that the originals were in a bad shape.

In order to get a readable result for most pages I have used 600dpi scan settings on a microfilm/mikrofiche scanner.

A word of caution - I think you might end up in a legal battle at least if you use the fiche sets from BA, and hope you are prepared for this.

Regards,
Andreas B

Re: IWM archive losses material
 

Hi

IWM Duxford have the QM 6 Losses already available on DVD, contact for ordering is Stephen Walton at SWalton@IEM.ORG.UK


Regards

Tony

Re: IWM archive losses material
 

Thanks to all. Seems like this information is already in the capable hands of Andreas so I see no benefit of sticking my nose into this as well! ;)

Here's hoping that it will be made available online in the future and I wish you every success with that.

Re: IWM archive losses material - correction/remarks
 

Just recieved IWM Duxford's DVD containing the QM6 losses, great to have them in such a handy format!

Some additional remarks:

• All orders are handled by archivist Mr Stephen Walton, who provides great service. Please note that his correct email address is SWalton@IWM.ORG.UK, not @IEM....
• Cost is 45 Pounds including air mail.
• On the DVD are 26 Adobe PDF files which consist of scans of the contents of the 12 IWM microfilm reels taken from the original registers now in the BA-MA Freiburg. A typical PDF file contains some 400 scans/pages.
• Quality of the scans is just as good/bad as the original microfilm/fiches, which means that some of them are quite sharp and others annoyingly unsharp...

Hope this helps. Best regards,

Marcel

Re: IWM archive losses material
 

The copy of the 1st film (39 thru the France) that I've reviewed from the IWM is almost useless. It was very badly copied and virtually illegible, at least for several key sections - the Battle for France is one I remember in particular. Possibly it was just a bad copy of the film, but I can't speak to that. The other 11 films are, for the most part, fine except for some terrible penmanship (or just some weird variations in script) for handwritten additions. Some are easily read, others incomprehensible. The typed correction pages are key, unfortunately I wasn't that smart back then. Working around the mistakes is another subject all together. (And like Andreas and several others, I have transcribed all this into a database.)

Re: IWM archive losses material
 

Hi
There must be some sort of loophole with scanning and making into a pdf file.
Just look at e bay and see all the aircraft manuals, same as the ones owned by hendon, NA/PRO, IWM. etc, available for sale.
All the sellers claim 'digital rights ' or some similar phrase, so surely the same would apply here to the loss tables, if they were scanned.
cheers
Jerry

Re: IWM archive losses material
 

If you are working from a digital file and have Photoshop or similar software it is often possible to "retrieve" text from very bad or faint copies. The end result may look decidedly odd but at least you can read it.

I have photographed pages at the National Archives that I could barely read on paper but managed to make legible on screen.

Re: IWM archive losses material
 

You could even set up a Photoshop 'action' to apply the same enhancement process to every single scan with only the press of a single button for the whole batch of scans. Very quick process once set up you can just walk away from your machine and it carries on doing all the work for you.

As for the copyright I think it would be wise to get legal advice on the matter. You might be ok if you are completely transcribing them into a different format (say a database) but then what is the difference between transcribing another authors copy from a book and reusing it. A tough one.

Clint