Help us Help the Mariners' Museum and Help Ourselves

[Bill Basler]

We have been in ongoing dialog with the Mariners' Museum since the beginning of time, but these discussions have been more frequent and more formalized in the last couple of years.

Our calls have included Mary Sellen, Head Librarian for the Chris-Craft Collection, her staff of volunteers, and Christopher Leahy, VP of Finance and Administration for the Mariners' Museum.

Our early calls focused on collaboration. We exchanged ideas for maximizing access to the Museums' Chris-Craft Collection, much as we have started to do with our own small collection.

As many of you know, I am a big proponent of getting these wonderful historic documents digitized. First, it provides a protective digital backup should the originals become ravaged by age, fire, water, sunlight and the human touch. This is true of all old documents. They are truly in a process of turning to dust. A preservation plan attempts to slow this down. Digitizing ensures that this information will be with us long after the ink on paper is gone.

Second, and equally as important, these documents can only serve their intended purpose if they can be accessed easily. And for the purpose of this discussion, a member flying to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and flipping through files is not "easy."

The Mariners' Museum faces the same challenges and has the same opportunities with their own collection, but on a much grander scale. Whereas our Club collection fills 4-5 palettes, the Mariners' Museum's Chris-Craft Collection fills 4-5 semi trailers. Even given the breadth of their collection, the Mariners' Museum understands the importance of digitizing the collection and making it available via the internet

Our recent discussions have focused on these two issues. Protection and access. And in our discussions with Mariners' Museum staff, we always return to our original thought of collaboration.

To this end, the Mariners' Museum has developed a very short survey that they are asking all of our members to take. Please take a couple of minutes to complete this short survey.

[Wood Commander]

Bill, I'll gladly take the survey.

But any conversation about the Mariner's Museum always makes me wonder, just what was the deal with Jerry Conrad, former director of The Mariner's Museum Research Library and valuable freind to all antique Chris Craft lovers.

I know that business is business and that Jerry's departure from The Mariner's Museum Research Library was probably just the result of the different direction that the museum was taking after launching their partnership with the Henry Newport College and moving the archives to the new, improved location across the street.

But everybody in our hobby and many future generations of Chris Craft enthusiasts will always be indebted to Jerry for producing the "Bible" of information on our beloved boats "Chris Craft the Essential Guide".

When I first heard about the guide, I thought "absolutely brilliant!". Actually a simple idea, but I'm SO glad somebody got the idea to do it! But Jerry blended the initiative to do the project with the means to access the information, and man I'm glad he did. His book should most certainly go down in antique Chris Craft enthusuast history as one of the single most important research tools we have.

I know it's highly likely that Jerry had a lot of help from other museum staff members in the making of the guide. But I think that Jerry has sort of been forgotten as progress marches on.

Anyway, I apologize for having hijacked this thread. Bill, please feel free to move it as you see fit.
But even though I'm very happy that we have the Mariner's Museum, I also hate to see Jerry be forgotten. And any mention of the museum reminds me of that.

[Ken Miller]

I just completed the survey, and included my email at the end where it asked if you'd be interested in helping by volunteering. But, as I am in northwest Georgia, I don't see how that is possible without an airliner.

Ken Miller.

[JohnKadimik]

Bret, If you think Jerry Conrad has been forgotten, what about Tom Crew? If there was no Tom, there would not have been a Jerry.

[jfrprops]

I am one of those lucky Virginians that can visit the Museum with ease. Now that it is at CHRISTOPHER (not henry) Newport Univ. it is a very great pleasure to visit.

I could help out. I took the survey. Thanks for that!

about 2 hours away.

john in Va.

[Wood Commander]

John, I've had the pleasure of meeting and talking with both Tom Crew and Jerry Conrad, as well as Charlotte Valentine and several other volunteers at The Mariner's Museum.
They were all great folks and I enjoyed getting to know them.

But while Tom Crew was a great guy and did a great job, his situation is quite different than Jerry's.

First off, Tom left voluntarily on his own to take another position at another institution, almost certainly at least a lateral move.
Jerry was, from what I can tell, dumped or laid off after also doing a very good job, during the "re-alignment". There may be others with better knowledge of the circumstances that could correct me if I'm wrong. I can only go by what happened and what I heard, admittedly not the best way of knowing things. But I think I have a fairly accurate grasp of what happened.

Also, Jerry hit the home run of putting together The Essential Guide, an accomplishment that will forever benefit antique boating mankind and secure his place in antique Chris-Craft boating history.

[Al Benton]

I would like to shuffle Bill Basler's topic back to the top, if you don't mind. It was good to hear from Bret and his kind words regarding our friend Jerry Conrad (all very well said), and John Kadinik's mention of Tom Crew (not to be forgotten) but let's get back to the subject of helping The Mariners' Museum now.

I took the survey and encourage all of you to take it as well. It may be the single most important thing you could do to help the museum establish a direction to follow in the near future in regards to the Chris-Craft Archival Collection.

If you have any interest at all in this collection (and you should if you own a Chris-Craft), please take the survey. It may be the very tool that the museum uses to make or break a decision to pursue digitizing all or part of the collection. A strong show of interest is, therefore, important, IMHO.

Please take the survey and help to show the museum that we are indeed very interested.

Al

[kcupido]

Just took the survey. Very easy and fast.
I live in northern Ontario, Canada... not much more I can do to help out... but glad to when I can.

[farupp]

I also took the survey a couple of days ago. It asks some very interesting questions and gives an idea about the future thinking of the individuals who manage the collection of their thoughts about how to maximize the value of the collection for both them and boat owners.

It takes at most 5 minutes to complete the survey.

[Bill Basler]

I received word from the survey organizers at the Mariners' Museum that the survey has been closed, and they have compiled the results.

We received 40 responses to the survey. This is not a lot of responses, but I do believe it is enough to help share insight as to where the Museum might concentrate their efforts.

As many of you know, we have been building an online archive within chris-craft.org for several years now. Speaking absolutely candidly, this is a lot of work, and funding is always needed. We have a bunch of pages that we hope to get online by the close of 2010. This will put our progress about inline with our funding received by year end.

The Mariners' Museum has been watching our Archive progress, and we have, in fact, had many conversations as to next steps for both parties. Having two totally separate archive systems is not the goal, but rather to get as much content online as possible.

You can view your results to the Mariners' Museum survey here:

www.chris-craft.org/downloads/Chris_Cra ... esults.pdf

[Wilson Wright]

Bill:

I'll bet they would have gotten more responses to their survey if more of us knew about it.

I don't have either my Ahoy or Brass Bell here at the coast but I don't recall seeing anything about a survey in either one. Come to think of it I don't recall seeing anything about it on the Chris Craft Commander messages either.

I'll bet if they opened it up again we could get them 5 or 600 replies.

[R_Maclay]

If it was announced more I would have definitely answered yes to the questions.

Sorry I don't always go straight to the traditional wooden boats and club news, always looking in the fiberglass section and trying to learn how to work my old fiberglass boat and now the aluminum pieces of the windshield and seats.

Even though I had ordered information about my XL-175 SunLounger from the Mariners Museum, my parents have a house in Williamsburg and have been to the museum a couple times, which I will be visiting eventually.

Hopefully next time there will be a broader outreach of a poll for the upcoming projects. Also I could have notified others from the other yahoogroups to respond as well.

Bob

[RRGadow]

Bill:

I'll bet they would have gotten more responses to their survey if more of us knew about it.

I don't have either my Ahoy or Brass Bell here at the coast but I don't recall seeing anything about a survey in either one. Come to think of it I don't recall seeing anything about it on the Chris Craft Commander messages either.

I'll bet if they opened it up again we could get them 5 or 600 replies.

Ditto!

[Al Benton]

I may be incorrect but I have to believe that many Boat Buzz participants use various means of checking out posts here. I may be one of few that looks at every unread post after logging on. Therefore, I saw this post immediately and responded to the survey request.

Lately though, I have been looking on the Club Home page and viewing the latest posts first, but before the day is out, I will have logged on so that "unread posts" are identified and looked at. When I'm done, there are no unread posts left. I just logged on to reply to this but when I'm finished, I'll see what else is new on the Forum.

All "From The Club" posts are featured on the Club Home page. If it contains a new post from Bill, Don or Brian I see it either there or as an unread post.

If everyone would do this, you wouldn't have missed the "Survey". I suppose I probably "Assume" (as the creator of Boat Buzz would) that all of us do as I do but for so many to have missed reading this Thread before now, there are other ways that folks use Boat Buzz.

I'm sure that more than just 40 members saw the survey, it's been viewed 516 times (to the minute). Many aren't interested or don't do on-line surveys but the views quantity is very low compared to other threads. There are some that number in the thousands of views in less time than this one has existed.

Honestly, it's discouraging to see such a low number of the almost 3,700 Boat Buzz members interested in this subject. There are obviously interested members that didn't see the post but no accurate way of knowing why not. What needs to change to Headline certain subjects here so that they aren't missed?

Al

[Wilson Wright]

Al: You are more technologically oriented than many of us...For instance. I thought I was getting all the posts each day...and if I'm not, I'm not sure why not or how to go find the ones I'm missing[/b]

[Reginald Down]

Gentlemen - Could or Would the survey be more effective with a higher return rate if it was sent as a mass e-mail to all members, as a core group?

Or is this not a viable option...

I completed the survey the same day it was posted on the Boat Buzz site and it took only a few minutes to complete.

[Al Benton]

Wilson, I have the Forum Index bookmarked on my browser so that when I click it I am there (Forum Index). When I log in, the Forum Index shows any areas that have a new post in them. The little red button to the left of the subjects (that was red before I logged in) will be green if there's a new post that I haven't looked at yet. I can select a subject and read the new posts or I could click on "View all posts since last visit" in the upper right hand side of the Forum Index. A list of new posts will appear.

As I recall, this only shows new posts since your last visit though. It works well if you look at all of the new ones each day. It does take a while if there's a large quantity but not so long if you check often. If it's of no interest, just move on to the next new post.

I believe you are set up to receive an e-mail notice if someone posts a reply on a thread that you have posted on. I am set up with that as well but seldom use the "link" that's provided to go directly to the new post. Instead, I open Boat Buzz, Forum Index in a new tab using the Bookmark, go to the Subject and read it. I like getting the notifications but delete them after seeing them, knowing that I can easily find them because they are "New Posts" by seeing the green buttons once I'm logged in.

In this case, easier done than said.

Al

[kcupido]

Face it fellas, it's the sad state of the world today. Instant gratification, or other wise... what's in it for me.
I too check for all unread posts when I log on. Soon as I read this one, I did the survey.
The e-mail idea sounds good... How it would work is anybody's guess.

[jahearne]

I signed up for the message digest that arrives in my Inbox everyday. It shows the Topic and recent message excerpts. Works well for me.

[Al Benton]

Great suggestion, John. I had forgot to mention that.

For those not familiar with this feature, it sends you an e-mail with a short digest of all new posts since the last time you logged in. It can be set up, by you, to include or exclude certain subjects listed on the Forum Index.

To set it up, after you Log In go to "Digests" at the top of the screen and select certain subjects to be included on the Message Digest. I have selected all of them. Select a "time of day" that you want the Message Digest to be sent to your e-mail address. You can adjust the number of characters that will be included in each digest message, if this number is too small, it's difficult to get the jest of the message.

It can be a handy way to see what's new on the Forum before you visit.