18.Feb.2022
|
Fundraiser: Preserving Commodore documents
Two days ago Dave McMurtrie of the Commodore International Historical Society and Brian Bagnall, known for his books about Commodore's company history, started a fundraising campaign to finance the retrieval of Commodore documents from a basement archive in Toronto. Brian Bagnall writes about this:
"These documents were gathered in 1965 and contain information about Commodore’s co-founders, including three days of interviews with Manfred Kapp and five days with Jack Tramiel. There are corporate logs (called minute books) and financial documents that can uncover some strange paths the company took, such as a foray into the hotel business in the Bahamas, and the unique story behind Commodore Jamaica. And much more.
In 2020, both Dave McMurtrie of the Commodore International Historical Society and Brian Bagnall, author of Commodore: A Company on the Edge, independently requested documents from the archives. However, the archives were shut down due to the crisis and only reopened in late 2021. Now we have been able to jointly request scans of the documents, but it comes with a steep price. The examination interviews with Tramiel and Kapp amount to 570 pages. At over a dollar per page that the archivist charges, this adds up fast. We want to unearth more than just the examination interviews, we want the thousands of other pages of business records, financial documents, sworn testimony, and evidence.
What it comes down to is we need your help! The best way to preserve these documents before they are lost to time is to back them up digitally and disperse them across the Internet. We will upload the documents to the Internet Archive so they have a permanent and reliable repository for future generations to explore."
Accordingly, one page costs around one US dollar. The initiators had issued the goal of 2000 Canadian dollars, which was already exceeded yesterday with over 3000 donated dollars. Accordingly, Brian Bagnall wrote:
"Thanks to everyone for helping us reach our goal in a matter of hours! It was much more than Dave or myself expected. Today we submitted an order for the first batch of 570 pages of interviews and should see the scans within two weeks if all goes well. The next request is a list of documents drawn up by Dave that includes notes from Commodore Jamaica director's meetings, corporate minute books, and some other evidence from Commodore Drycopy in New York. What we find will help guide us to other documents we might want to request after that. With 314 boxes, I don't think the well of documents will run dry anytime soon." (dr)
[News message: 18. Feb. 2022, 06:20] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
