How does one catalog all the many bits of modeling research that they have?
Case in point. the other night I was trying to force myself to get started on at least one of the scenes on the layout. I looked at the area round the water tower. and thought that's not a bad place to start. I dug out a reject la casting for one part of it, then thought 'I remember a photo of this area'. But where to look. Unfortunately I don't have a 'photographic memory' (haha) for these things like my brother (He would probably say something like 'oh that's on page 34 of the March 1976 'Railways of Oureggostan' or something similar)
First up I trawled through the photo collection on the computer. No luck. Next I thought 'maybe its in one of my hard cover books.' I also recalled it being a black and white photo and so grabbed the ones that just had black and white pictures. No luck again, though I did spend some time looking at 1950's west coast photos and thinking again of that large layout.
Right, next thought. Maybe its in a Railfan, but again which one. Well, its going to be something about wellington, so its either in the EW article (oh, hang on, there were 2), the one on the Baker valve gear Ka's or one of the ones on banking with the section on out of the capital. back out to the Man-sion .
Hmm, Railfan doesn't have any index on the cover, so I consult the Railfan that I use to keep track of which ones I own and which ones I need to buy to get a complete set. Right, December 1999 and March 200 for the banker articles. No luck. The 958/959 article also yields no photo, and I get to the first Ew one. Finally there it is. Search time 2 hrs (with sidetracking).
Now I know that the more organised would say that you need an index to catalog all o this stuff, but what would I file the picture under? Its got an Ew in it, there's the south end of the loco depot and then the one wee bit of the scene that I want to use. Its really down to the old grey cell at the end of it (who is feeling very put upon).
Oh, and I can't do anything as I don't have any red oxide paint so it was all rather a mute point anyway.
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7 comments:
I had a similar problem back in the day and decided early on to mostly solve it by turning anything I might need from mags and books into electronic bits and pieces. To whit jpegs tifs or in some cases PDFs.
I scanned (or saved from the Internet - Flicker, NZ120, MD blog or whatever) anything I might need relating to my particlar era or area of interest, and now have a substantial and still growing repository that is easily findable becasuse I've given the image, or pdf, a meaningful filename to filter or search on.
I know there's probably software out there that can do all this very sophisticatingly, buy I'm a firm believer in the KISS principle.
The secret is to have a bit of forethought and organise a little into meaningfully named folders. And most importantly include relevant keywords in the filename. e.g. in my Locos and wagons folder, are files called
DXB5293 KiwiRail on 832R headlights horns detail coasting past Lake Moana JUL2009.jpg
and
EF30193 EF30065 FruitSalads U flat with Bulk Wine container Milson NOV1990.jpg
and
Lc3 with wood plank load centre pole detail.jpg
and in the Stations and buildings folder. . .
Cass station and goods shed Drewry Railcar and Dj pink passing.jpg
The latter file is in Stations and buildings folder because primary view is of the Station buildings, but if I search on Drewry for example I'll find it too.
i.e plenty of keywords for what you might need.
Works for me.
SteveF
I accumulate relevant photos, plans, maps and articles for each layout I am working on OR PLANNING in a separate photo album or folder. For large projects, subcategories may be grouped together (e.g. in clearview pages in a ringbinder) so that they can be easily referred to as I make each part (e.g. bldg 1, bldg2, bridge 2, yard area), etc).
For generic items (e.g. J5 wagon, F class locomotive, class 6 station), relevant photos, plans, articles chopped from magazines, historical text articles, pictures from calendars all go into a labelled A4 envelope and are stored in a filing Cabinet. Themes such as "cabbage trees", "early fencing", "yard trackage and clearances" or "clothing of the 1900s" also get their own A4 envelope.
Despite this, I also need a set of picture books of NZ railways to allow me to find relevant items that I haven't researched. It is a case of just going throught them all looking for the particular item (e.g. 1880s water tanks, 1950s semaphore signals), taking photo copies and putting them into new envelopes if they are likely to be needed in future.
This method of storing research means I have to be accumulating items years ahead of when I plan to use them, and have a rough idea of what I hope to model and not model in the future
0-4-4-0T
I just rely on my photographic memory.....
"Betchi" - The Ancient Martial Art of Gambling
how often do you guys save a back up of the content of your computer ? just asking...
steve w.
you guys scare me. So organised.
I have a shelf or two of books and old NZ and UK model railway journals plus the internet for National etc library online archives. Actually, for shelf read boxes as my stuff is in storage during present house build.
I have to admit that the thought of organising research materials for planning the next project recalls a conversation with a friend who made hangis:
'whats going in the hangi on saturday?'
'whatever dies on the day'
Quentin
Steve W asked: "how often do you guys save a back up of the content of your computer ?"
I don't need to as it is all paper based. However, I'm just starting to collect a few images and plans on computer and so have been re-saving these to a flash drive as a kind of back-up every 4 months or so.
0-4-4-0T
Steve W asked: "how often do you guys save a back up of the content of your computer ?"
A very good qestion I often ask in my line of work Steve ;-) The more scary question is "How could you cope if your computer died/blew up/was stolen right now this minute?"
I hear a lot of sad stories and so this is the only thing I get geeky/anal about.
Personally, backup is every week or two, or depending on how much stuff has been added or changed. Each backup alternates between two external USB drives, each drive having three or four chronologically different copies, overwriting the oldest copy on the drive each time, and making sure one drive is always taken off site.
I just DON'T want to lose all that mostly irreplaceable stuff!
SteveF
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