[Andreas Brekken]

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