Archive of Collections
Information for Creating an Archive
Rod Lovett creates the archive based on information given to him by the collector.
The collector decides upon "Categories" for their rules. There may be only one category which would normally be "Makers", e.g. Aristo, Thornton etc.
There may be several categories, e.g. Makers, Concrete, Favourites, and a rule may appear in more than one category. In Richard Davis' Collection there are sixty categories.
In every category there are two directories; one for the thumbnails and one for the large images. We will call these directories "thumbnails" and "images". (There's also a spreadsheet file - see later.)
Let's take the category "Aristo" and we will suppose you have three rules. The naming convention is as follows:
In the thumbnail directory, "thumbnail", of this category you would have three images
2000.jpg
2001.jpg
2002.jpg
The width of each thumbnail image must be 400 px. The height is your decision.
If it was a circular rule then the height would probably be 400px, a linear rule would probably be less, some rules would be more.
Look at the Richard Davis Collection in the "Archive of Collections" - HERE - to see how the thumbnails appear.
The starting number is up to you. (Above it is chosen to be 2000). The numbers do not have to be consecutive but initially it seems reasonable to make them so. It's not necessary to have 4-digit numbers but most archives do have 4-digit numbers.
In the large image directory, "images", of this category you have the large images corresponding to the thumbnails. You may have as many large images corresponding to each thumbnail as you wish - up to a maximum of 26 for each thumbnail!, e.g.
2000a.jpg
2000b.jpg
2000c.jpg
2001a.jpg
2001b.jpg
2002a.jpg
2002b.jpg
2002c.jpg
2002d.jpg
In a different category, e.g. Faber it is permissible to use exactly the same numbering, e.g. starting at 2000 but I suggest you don't! By having completely disparate number ranges in each category the possibility of error during image production is reduced.
And finally in each category there is the spreadsheet which is very important and defines the
information you want displayed for each rule, e.g.
Number Type Description/Model Maker Country Construction Material Date Scale Length Area of Use Comments
Linear Aristo Germany 1961 Optician Whatever you wish
Circular Aristo Germany Unknown General Whatever you wish
The first line of the spreadsheet contains the format of the information which you wish to associate with each rule. You decide this line. The one given is the one used by
Richard Davis and Cliff Fröhlich. This has been given considerable thought but you can choose differently if you wish with a different number of headings.
However, once you have chosen this format it is set in concrete. It cannot be changed and is the same for all your rules in all categories.
You do not need to have information in every column but every column must be present even if blank.
The second line is an example of what might be present. This line and all subsequent lines will relate to your rules.
It is the order of entries in this spreadsheet which dictates the order that the displayed thumbnails appear. This order may be changed at any time. It should be emphasised that the numbers are used for identification ONLY; they have no other role and are NOT used for ordering.
A collector does not submit the whole of their collection to me at once! I strongly suggest that initially only one category - or even part of a category - is submitted so we can iron out any problems.
Please email any questions to me at: rod at lovett.com
where " at " is replaced by the usual "@".