Erowid is in the final stretch of digitizing and cataloging the documents, books and other media that are part of the Shulgin Collection. So close!
The most recent multi-day volunteer gathering held at the Farm to catalog books, scan anything tucked into books, and go through everything with fine tooth combs was held on September 12-14.
We’re still finding stray bits and pieces here and there: an overlooked box in a closet, an envelope that had slipped behind a desk, a photo in an unexpected place, but the part that involves scanning Sasha and Ann’s papers is 99% finished.
Two of the last steps in the archiving plan of action were started this month: 1) Cataloging Sasha’s psychoactive drug-related books and anything else on the shelves of his office, and 2) Inventorying and digitizing audiovisual and other media, which one volunteer has dubbed “anachronistic media” — the glass slides, VHS tapes, undeveloped film in odd formats, and out-of-date digital storage media of various sorts (remember Zip disks?). We’ve already catalogued all the off-topic books and some of the industry periodicals and scientific journals, a process that took hundreds of people-hours.
Compiling metadata about each item is crucial, and this process is parallel and ongoing. This involves sorting through a scan and figuring out what the thing is, keywording, summarizing, marking what needs to be redacted for privacy prior to making available to the public, etc. We’ve categorized and added metadata for 75,000 out of 200,000+ scanned Shulgin documents so far!
The most exciting part has been uncovering gems as we go through every piece of material. We loved one photo that Keeper Trout found, of a neuroscience meeting from 1968 at MIT about “psychotomimetics”. How times have changed. But what an amazing cast of characters, for the history buffs.
Much more to come, with the help of contributors and volunteers. We also are stalled on a couple of fronts due to budget constraints, notably the photo digitizing, which must be outsourced.
Thanks to everyone and, of course, to Sasha, Ann, Wendy, and the rest of the family for making it possible to get to this point.
