Effectively Archiving Descriptions
I have been experimenting with how to archive descriptions.
The most effective method of archiving descriptions is an open question. The issues are manageability, ease of construction, and ultimate utility for the user.
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PDF files (like photocopies or from typed text) scanned documents would be the fastest way to imput the information, but it requires very good copy to begin with. Since these are historical documents, this might be difficult.
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HTML files look good, and are easy to read online, but are time-consuming to construct and end up containing HTML commands and end of line commands which would have to be cleaned out if people want to copy them.
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TXT files look funky, lack formatting, but they can be transmitted as clean text. They only require typing or inputting by OCR.
The second issue is how to keep them organized. Since files will be easy to find, it seems that keeping information for each taxon separate would be useful. This requires breaking up articles into separate files as they are typed. Example: An html file containing one taxon
A second approach would be to copy the literature as whole units and people could find what they are looking for within them. Example: A text file of a (more or less) complete article; or a similar article in PDF format.
A third approach would be to compile the information about each taxon into a document about it.
Example: A text file of multiple descriptions.
Another perspective on this question will be most appreciated.
Yours,
Patricia