[Bell Historians] Library Committee's learned journal

[A Willis]

David Bryant wrote

Most work in bell history, and indeed in local history and archaeological
societies,
is done on a voluntary basis, so why should money be an issue? Many such
societies have cumulative printed indices for every ten years, or something
along those lines, and putting these on the web would not be a huge task for
people with basic knowledge of web publishing, and it seems fairly likely
that such people are to be found in many local history societies and the
like. If the opportunities offered by the web are not realised by such
societies that is their loss.


It is not so much money that is an issue, but time. Volunteers are can be
hard to find, and those that do are often hard-pressed. (Look at John
Baldwin's reply about the National Bell Register). The CD cataloging for
the Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine is is being done on a part-time
voluntary basis by a professional cataloger, but it will be at least two
years (the librarian's estimate) before it is available. It would be great
to have the Society's Library Catalogue, not to mention those very useful
tomes, Wiltshire Cuttings similarly catalogued, but the task is enormous. I
suspect other Societies have their own difficulties. The Wiltshire A.and
N.S. Society is very willing to take advantage of the web, but it cannot
afford to pay for the professional help in these matters to speed things up.

As you say, the web costs virtually nothing, but it is still a minority
tool.

There is still the basic difficulty of getting people to actually commit
their research to paper/screen. Is there perhaps a greater satisfaction to
be had in having a book printed, rather than putting it on the web, despite
the latter's advantages?

An advantage of a Journal is that it could be properly edited by a
professional. However good one's writing is, an independent critic is no
bad thing.