Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with archive

Backing up my old emails

naju — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 08:34:18 -0800

At work I'm using a Macbook Pro with OS X 10.7.4, running Outlook 2011. Today, I have to ship off this computer to get an upgrade and security update, and they will be wiping out the contents of the hard drive. They've left us very minimal instructions to back up any files we need. For me, the absolute most important thing is having access to all of my old emails and their attachments. So, QUESTION: how do I backup all of my emails in Outlook so that I'll be able to access them on my newly-wiped computer? Where are email files stored on my computer? How can I back up the attachments on the old emails? How do I avert total disaster?

Repurposing your Facebook backup

mecran01 — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 14:37:35 -0800

It's now relatively easy to backup your Facebook account. I'm wondering if there are any apps or scripts that allow one to manipulate that data. For example, a script that would convert archived status updates into a blog or export photos into a Flickr account.

Need advice on archiving my CD/DVD collection.

Mantix — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 09:34:22 -0800

Here's what I want to do. 1. put cd/dvd in drive of computer 2. rip it 3. software places files in folder structure I define 4. spits out cd/dvd and does it all over again. Ultimately what I'd like to do is create a digital library of all my music and movies in one central place so my smart tv/computers/tablets/phones have access to the media whenever and wherever. Please flood me with suggestions. I'm a noob at this.

Looking for copies of the Sleater-Kinney Live Vault bootlegs...

Going To Maine — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:45:16 -0800

Back in 2009, Sleater-Kinney.net hosted a collection of 176 live bootlegs of the band; it was stored as eight zipfiles collectively known as "The Live Vault". (archive.org shot of the Live Vault page.) Since then the site has gone offline and the recordings seem to have disappeared from the Internet. If you have copies or know who to speak to about them, I would greatly appreciate any pointers. Unfortunately, the music doesn't seem to have been stored in archive.org, and I deleted my own copies of it ages ago in the foolish expectation that it would still be around. My current plan is to dig through the archived forum posts here in hopes of finding a working contact &/or troll around reddit threads until finding someone who archived them. Do any of y'all have a hot lead?

Since I couldn t find anyone who could help us, I decided

six-or-six-thirty — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:06:21 -0800

I need to have access to all 16,679 of @Horse_ebooks' tweets. Twitter and most other archives will only give me 3,200. As you can imagine this is a dire need. It would be REALLY nice if the tweets were also in a simple, downloadable or searchable format; I ultimately need to be able to search by keyword.

There are a lot of services that will show the entirety of your OWN tweets but obviously that won't help. Is all of this gold seriously lost to history?

Help me Ask MeFi you're my only hope.

Making copies of old hand drawn art.

slothhog — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 13:25:09 -0800

I have some hand drawn portraits by my late Grandfather, they were drawn on thin paper before he went to the Southern Pacific during WWII. I would like to make sure other people in the family have copies. What is the best way in Seattle to make copies?

Ideas for starting a local history habit?

to recite so charmingly — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 06:12:02 -0800

I work downtown, and recently on my lunch, I happened upon a local history archive in the library branch near my work. I'd like suggestions for fun tasks that I can accomplish there on my short lunch break. I love old things, and the atmosphere there makes me happy. The last couple of days, I just poked around the archive just to find stuff I liked to look at, which was fun, but I'd like to start going there with a purpose so I don't get tired of it. I'm not really talking about taking on an academic project like an essay. I'm imagining doing something artistic (but not capital A art) or just something very focused (like hunting for things in a particular context). There are many old atlases of the region, photograph negatives from events, people, and buildings, I think there are also old postcards, and of course books. I have access to my camera, a photocopier, and a light table. Some examples of the type of thing I'm thinking of would be photocopying maps to colour in with watercolour pencils, or photographing negatives and reversing them later in Photoshop. What other activities could I do to engage with the material in a short time? I'd also welcome ideas that are less "hands-on" than my examples.
Thank you!

This is your Mac. This is your Mac on lockdown.

Admiral Haddock — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 09:22:33 -0800

Looking for best practices for home data security for an exclusively Mac household. We've had questions about security on the Mac before (search), and for protecting files and folders, a password protected disk image sounds like the way to go (I might also try Knox, though I'm not sure what it adds--but I use 1Password religiously). I'd be happy to hear any new developments (i.e., have people stopped experiencing FileVault corruption issues?), but that seems straightforward enough.

The slap to the forehead moment, however, was realizing that 1) I don't know what Keychain has in it and who could use it (assuming access to the machine), and 2) I leave gmail logged in, and my wife has Mail.app always running, and if someone had one of the machines, access to the email could give them broad access using "forgot my password" links (D'oh! I realize as I'm writing this that I should have separate emails for those that don't stay logged in!). And those are just the holes that occurred to me at 4:00 in the morning--I'm sure you Mac boffins can think of a million other overlooked holes.

I know TimeMachine is unencrypted, but if I nuke the drive and start backing up once I've set up a encrypted disk image, I'm assuming that I'd be ok (although does the archive allow, e.g., a cookie or open browser session to be backed up? Is that just magical thinking?). I also am wondering about unencrypted iOS backups--would there be a way to extract anything from them? Can you pull anything out of a Spotlight index?

I'll probably add a screen saver / wake from sleep password, but I know that doesn't secure data, just the most casual snoops (target disk mode, password resets, etc.).

TL;DR: assume I'm an average Mac user who's been lazy about security (using Keychain, "keep me logged in" status on Gmail and other web sites), no password to access Mail.app, no encrypted data other than in 1Password). Please tell me anything I need to delete, update, uncheck, install, opt out of, opt into, or buy to make my Macs locked down tight. I don't mind spending money, I don't mind inconvenience.

If my Macs were lost or stolen, I don't want to give one second's thought to the security of sensitive data or backdoors through email or Keychain or iOS backups or whatever. Thanks!

No really, must I keep my 3rd grade diploma?

Ruthless Bunny — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:29:09 -0800

I have boxes of neatly organized crap! I would like to upload as much as possible to "the cloud" thus freeing up space in the basement for the kitteh olympics. I need recommendations! I'm interested in scanning all of our printed photos and organizing them into a cohesive set of digital "albums" that I can share with friends and family on-line. Also, once that's done, I'd like to save to discs and ditch the actual albums that I've been schlepping around since the Regan administration.

I'd like to be able to make notes on each picture, names, dates, situation, etc.

Secondly, I'd like to upload all of our insurance info, pink-slips, deeds, etc, so if we have to bug out ahead of another "Super-Storm" I can access important documents from my iPhone, or at least using a lap top.

I'm willing to spend under $500 for photo scanners, document scanners, and good software to help me organize all of this stuff.

Husbunny has "papers" and other stuff from childhood. I'd like to digitize and organize it for him, so we can stop courting the hanta virus from all of these old, dusty papers.

What does the hive mind recommend?

What are good ways to archive old email?

kellybird — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 12:02:49 -0800

What are good ways to archive old email? I have a bunch of email in a bunch of accounts. Most of it is on IMAP servers. Is there a good tech solution out there to get the 5000+ messages out of my inbox and into a separate archive?

I'd love to simply offload it all, empty my inbox, and still have the capacity to search and access those old messages when I occasionally need them. Putting them in a dummy gmail account (kellybird.archive@gmail.com, for instance) is an option... though I am not even sure how to do that.

Where do you keep your old email? What would you recommend?

[I checked past AskMefis and didn't find the solution. If this has been answered before, feel free to point me in that direction. Thanks!]

Prying my stuff out of Facebook

ignignokt — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 09:35:43 -0800

I'm in the process of emptying out my Facebook account. I appreciate any tips on this, but there's a couple of things I'd like to know in particular. 1. How long can I expect to wait to receive my archived data from Facebook? I asked for it via their form two weeks ago, and then again one week ago and still haven't gotten anything.

2. I've searched for a way to just delete all the data from the account without deleting the account itself, and it seems that that's not possible. So, I think the next best thing is a user script that just keeps on clicking delete on all of the content. Can you recommend one?

What is the best electronic device for this task?

UniversityNomad — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:57:29 -0800

Help me find a device (or two devices) that will take pictures, and then easily convert these pictures to PDFs. Alternatively, persuade me to buy an iPad! I go on archival trips for my research. I take lots of pictures of documents (hundreds of pictures a day, and thus thousands on each trip), and then need to convert them into grouped PDFs. With a digital camera, this is fairly labor-intensive and complicated, because I end up with thousands of pictures on my digital camera, and then need to download them all to my laptop, sort them into groups (i.e. find out where one document or folder that I've photographed ended and another began, which is harder after the fact because I forget), and then convert each of these groups into PDFs. When I was on a recent trip, another researcher showed me his new iPad, which appeared to take fairly clear pictures, and then you could create a PDF then and there, and drag the relevant pictures into it as you took them, which would hugely minimize confusion and also time spent later.

My question is: what device(s) is/are the best for this? Is an iPad indeed the device that I'm looking for? Will this simplify things massively from my current digital camera/laptop set-up? Is the picture-to-PDF process really as easy as it seemed on his iPad? What model and size of iPad should I get for this task? How many PDFs can I store on the iPad before it's full? Can I take them each night off the iPad and onto a USB stick to store them, so I can make more PDFs on the iPad? Is there some other device (maybe a cheaper one!) that will do what I want as well or even better? Are there any other cool features that I might like on the iPad, especially for a PhD student/academic? Also, if I buy an iPad, that will probably replace my laptop, and I won't be able to afford another laptop in addition. What disadvantages does iPad plus keyboard have over a laptop? I have never had an iPad, and don't know much about it, or any other alternatives (non-Apple or otherwise), so any advice would be great!

Gmail Archive feature - it seems excellent and scary.

Tehhund — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 09:02:02 -0800

Will I regret aggressively using Gmail’s Archive function? I’ve been using Gmail for several years on the web and on Android phones, and I love it. I recently started using the Archive feature on my Apps account at work, and it seems really helpful, but honestly I’m scared to use Archive on my 2 main personal accounts.

I have Google Apps-based Gmail for my work email, and I started using Archive to keep the Inbox for my work account empty. It seems like a nice way to keep things tidy: items for follow-up get labeled To Do and remain visible in my Priority Inbox, or they get banished to All Mail. But I consider this work email to be transient (sooner or later I’ll take another job) so it doesn’t worry me that I might mess it up. My personal Gmail has 5 years of emails and I hope to use it for as long as Gmail exists. Somehow that makes me afraid to Archive everything in my Inbox, because it’s not easy to undo Archiving for 9,000 messages. So now I have 9,000 emails in my Inbox, which is the opposite of organized.

Is there any chance I’ll regret following the Archive workflow? Does anyone know of anything Archiving could mess up, or any horror stories around “I wish I hadn’t archived?”

And is there any way to automatically label anything that goes from Inbox to Archived, so I could keep track of all emails that used to be in the Inbox but were archived just in case I wanted to undo the entire operation later on? Right now I could do a search of “everything in Inbox” and apply some kind of backup label, but then anything that I Archive in the future will be missing that label unless I manually add it (which I won’t).

How do I import my pre-organized photos into Aperture?

primethyme — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 09:03:23 -0800

What is the best way to import my 10+ years of photos into Aperture without screwing up the existing on-disk organization? I have over ten years' worth of digital photos, summing up to about 400GB. I have them archived in folders as Year/Month/Day/YYYY-MM-DD-. So, for example, 2012/09/15/2012-09-15-IMG_1234.JPG. I like this organization for a few reasons:

1. It keeps each folder to a reasonable size (instead of having one folder per month or year or something).
2. It makes it easy to find things if I know what date they were taken.
3. All of the photos from a given day/session are together.
4. The file name keeps the photos unambiguous, even if they're copied out of the archive folder (so if I'm making an album, I don't end up with two IMG_1234.JPGs; as long as they were taken on different days, they'll have different names. And my import system deals with name collisions on the same day, in the very rare case that they occur).

I have gone through a few phases of how to catalog the images, which I won't bore you with here. I'm considering trying Aperture as a new solution (I already own Aperture, but I just use it for processing RAWs and making books), and I'm wondering what the best import strategy is.

The biggest problem I've encountered so far is that if I do "Folders As Projects," which seems the most logical, it ends up creating projects with just the name of the base folder (which is the day of month). So I end up with a bunch of projects called "23" for the 23rd of every month of every year. Not very useful.

Now, I could go in and rename all the folders so the bottom level folder has the full date in it. It wouldn't be very hard to write a script to do that. But I'd like to hear about other solutions first. I like the elegant simplicity of the year/month/day paths, so I'd rather not soil it by changing it to year/month/year-month-day. Also, I'd have to update a bunch of scripts and such that assume the current organization. I'm hesitant to invest that much effort when I'm not even 100% sure I'm going to stick with Aperture for this.

So, what am I missing? What strategies did you use if you imported a huge existing archive of photos into Aperture?

Need video clips

kenaldo — Wed, 09 May 2012 09:57:49 -0800

I need to find a resource (or resources) where I can download old black and white clips. I have an idea for a project that needs about 2 to 3 minutes of old b and w videos depicting scenes that are very wholesome (leave it to beaver style, families, fun, uplifting, etc) and troubling things (police brutality, atomic bomb explosions, negative stuff).

Is there somewhere I can go sift thru clips and download this type of stuff? Public domain type stuff? Thanks peeps.

Help getting wee bit of CALM, VERNON experience.

aesop — Wed, 09 May 2012 06:12:24 -0800

For a job application- How can I get a little bit of hands on experience of using an archives management system like CALM or VERNON? I live in Bristol, England. I'm applying for a job and experience of using one of these is an essential component.

I reckon I've got most of the skills that would be gained from experiencing these systems anyway: I've got lots of experience using library (not archive) management systems and have set up projects using various content management systems for the web. I'm aware of the use and purpose of diferent metadata schema, and the use/purpose of assorted Authority lists/structures for controlling vocabulary, and the distinctions between those. Created audiovisual/photo collections cobbling together Flickr/Microsoft Expression studio/ horrifying misuse of IPTC. (This last included lots of problem solving pointing towards the things that an archives CMS does more easily.) But... truthfully, I haven't had the chance to use these systems, though I'd probably have kissed them if they'd been available to me at various points. I need to be able to say that I have at least had a wee bit of experience to get past the form-checking process.

Other applicants might well have more experience in this part, but my additional experiences in other areas of the job are a good fit- makes me think it'd be a shame to lose out just because I don't technically have the experience of a particular system.

Alternatively, ways to get past the application checking process to do my stuff in interview and reassure them that a: I get it; b: I have experience of similar stuff; c: (considering me as a candidate for the post) there's loads of added value in other areas.

One-Time Cloud Backup of Archives

Quisp Lover — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:10:51 -0800

Help me do a one-time "cloud" back-up of archived text files and stuff in order to supplement my Time Machine backup. I use a Mac. I'm protected against disk failure via Time Machine. But that won't protect me against a house fire, robbery, etc. My most important current files are all in DropBox, so they're cool. So I'd like to have one offsite backup of old text files, Eudora mailboxes, etc., out there, I suppose via "The Cloud".

Uncompressed, the data's huge, but zipping should save space, as it's almost all text (and the hassle of expansion isn't a problem, since this is only for use in event of unlikely catastrophe). This would still be too much data for my free DropBox account, and I find DropBox's for-pay expansion options overpriced (though they'll likely come down due to all the recent competition). And, anyway, I don't really need the power or versatility of DropBox for this task.

My plan is this: zip (using encryption) each subfolder in my documents folder. Then scatter them around to some combo of Google Drive and Skydrive, making use of free accounts. No privacy sweat re: using Google 'cuz of the encryption.

Does this make sense? Again, this is a one-time operation, strictly as insurance, so convenience and power don't really count.

Digital media backup and storage.

hapticactionnetwork — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:09:23 -0800

You generate a lot of video/audio/etc. You're a professional, but not a network or tv station, so you don't have millions of dollars to spend on media archiving and backup. What are your digital media backup and storage strategies? I work for a theater company that generates a lot of video. We have a daily video blog in HD, we document most performances in HD, and we document about 5 hours a day of rehearsals in SD.

I don't really have a handle on exactly how much data we generate, different people are responsible for different things, which is part of the problem.

I'm researching storage and backup strategies. We've looked at things like this, and it seems like they're too expensive/too technical for us. (We're essentially a group of artists, we can't really afford to hire a full time IT person).

My current thinking is that we should get some kind of RAID array, and attach it to our network somehow so that people can dump backup copies of whatever media they're generating on their desktop/laptops onto a secure (?) thing we have physically on-site. But then what about off-site data storage? And what do we do when it gets full, buy another one?

Right now we're storing all of our footage on external hard drives with firewire 800/400. I'm trying to get a handle on where we should go from here to improve our strategies, but I'm not even sure where to start. If you know any decent guides online, I'd be happy to read them. I'd also be totally happy with specific suggestions like, "Hey buy this and use it."

I would also be happy to receive suggestions about *people* who can help with this kind of thing, if there's such a thing as a person who would come in and help analyze our situation and give advice. I don't know if these people exist.

Oh, also, we're mac based. Mostly Mac Pro towers, but a few laptops too.

Thanks so much.

Turning thousands of loose-leaf papers into dozens of PDFs

subject_verb_remainder — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:27:04 -0800

I have a few thousand pages of documentation I'd like to digitize and organize, eventually making a series of PDFs out of them. Can you help me make this task less painful? My company has tons and tons of game documentation in binders that doesn't exist anywhere else. I've brought up the issue of game preservation (see related topics on the blue) and somehow ended up with a gigantic pile on my desk that spans the last 15 years. I'd like to archive all of it, and then organize parts into smaller PDFs (i.e. a PDF of level designs for game X, another for concept art in game Y).

Here's some specifics:
* All the docs are looseleaf 8.5x11" or less
* Our office scanners don't have document feeders, so I need to purchase one myself - any recommendations? (It's from my own funds so I can't go too expensive)
* I have access to lots of common design and art software at work (such as Adobe Creative Suite)
* Lots of the documents are out of order, so they'll need to be organized and categorized after scanning but before being put into PDFs. Is there any software that can help me with this part?
* There's lots of duplicates that I probably won't catch until they're scanned. Again, any software that might help me automate this?
* Some pages are one-sided, and others are double sided, all mixed together
* Some pages have highly detailed, colorful drawings or diagrams, while others are just printed Word documents. Is there a good way to balance the scanning quality to suit both without file sizes becoming totally unreasonable?

Does anyone have any ideas on how to make this easier on me?

Best way to tell whether an online news article was published in print

forkisbetter — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:51:13 -0800

At work I am often asked whether a news story on a website appeared in print, and we need to know within a quick timeframe. We do not have Lexis Nexis or any other such database for me to check against and there's no chance that we'll have money in our budget to buy a subscription. Usually I resort to using Press Display, but they don't have every paper. Is there an online resource for me to use to determine what was published in print? Often I am checking on larger papers like Wall Street Journal or USA Today, but occasionally I have to find out with very small local papers or I will have to check to see if a particular article was published in print in several papers across the nation.

There is no chance that we have it in our budget to add another subscription, we already cut our LexisNexis subscription, so looking for something free or nearly free.

index.html: the internet's best directory browsing resources and how to find them.

jjjjjjjijjjjjjj — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:45:52 -0800

Open Directories: Occasionally I'll come across an index.html treasure-trove. What are the best and most interesting directory indexes of public-facing (by design or by oversight) public-domain archival materials? How does one find more of them? My chief interest with this question is finding open directories of large, archival-quality historical maps (such as this one from U of Wisconsin-Milwaukee); but I'm always excited when I come across fantastic directories of other materials (images/pdfs/shapefiles) as well.

Reddit's /r/OpenDirectories is a good resource, but it's a little too warez/porn heavy, and my only interest is in public domain archival materials.

How does one find these? I've had luck with just finding where the image lives, and then looking for an "index.html". Otherwise, I've had mixed results by kludging together some tailored google searches, such as:

“index of /map OR maps” jp2 OR j2k OR tiff OR tif -html -htm -download -links

“index of /” sid OR jp2 OR j2k OR tiff OR tif map OR maps -html -htm -download -links

...but I'm sure that these can be improved upon. I arrived at them by trial-and-error and it's frustrating to try to discern the efficacy of minor changes to the formula.

Common file types I am looking for are MrSID [.sid]; JPEG 2000 [.jp2, .j2k, .jpf, .jpx, .jpm, .mj2]; TIFF [.tif, .tiff]; and to a much lesser extent Deja Vu [.djvu, .djv]. Though if you know of any other types associate with large images, I'd welcome the input.

Feel free to MeMail me if you don't want to post publically. I will respect your wishes regarding non-/disclosure of whichever resource.

Need recommendations a custom (?) online video/image portal

brbmaroon — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:54:55 -0800

I work for an advertising company that sells very high profile ad locations. One of the ways we demonstrate value to our advertisers is collecting and showing them examples of their ads appearing incidentally in TV, film, newspapers, etc. I would like to create an online portal for displaying a rolling chronological archive of these video clips and still images. Basically I need to create a CMS archive site or series of youtube-ish-like sites, for a private set of users. The content should NOT be available to the general public, since many of these are copyright protected clips. (We pay royalties for the right to distribute these clips to the small set of people we share them with, and have been authorized to do so.) We will also password protect access the whole site.

I would like to be able to upload a clip or image and enter some basic metadata (channel, program title, circulation, etc.) and have it display when the clips plays or the image is displayed. I would like to be able to upload both videos and photos and have them displayed in chronological order, most recent clips at the top. I need a simple way to upload the content and input metadata (no coding required ideally) since I hope to rely on help from my less tech-savvy coworkers for uploading.

Here’s where it gets a little trickier - we have approximately 20 advertising locations and I often receive a clip that shows several locations in one clip, so I would like to be able to upload the clip and metadata once, and then designate (through checkboxes during the upload process, or tagging with search terms) which of the clip rooms the clip will appear in. Example: If Clip 1 shows ads A and B and Clip 2 shows only ad A, I will upload both clips once, tag clip 1 with A and B and tag Clip 2 with A. When advertiser A logs in, they will see clips 1 and 2, and advertiser B will only see clip 1.

I am open to a solution where there is one portal requiring users to log-in, or where each advertiser gets a unique url. I want to do this the “right” way and could get a decent budget for this if I needed to. I am open to having something built from scratch (seems like overkill) but hoping for a plug-in or script that can be configured once and won't require coding on an ongoing basis.

Considerations:

1) Has to look professional - ideally clean and simple look.

2) What video format/hosting should I use? HTML5? We would like to have the clips viewable on phones, tablets, etc. 

3) Simple uploading and data entry/tagging procedure. 

4) Copyright issues may be a consideration for hosted video solutions, since uploading content like this to sites like Vimeo, etc. violates their terms.

5) Want to be able to integrate both video and still images

Thanks!

AOL Message Board Archives?

downing street memo — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:44:19 -0800

As a teenager, I participated on an AOL politics message board (one that you accessed from the AOL application, not from the web). This would've been 2000-2003, or thereabouts. Do you know if the archives for these forums exist on the web anywhere? I'm not looking for anything specific, just thought it would be cool to see what people were talking about as well as my own (likely absurd) contributions to the dialogue.

The Library of Congress has my cheese sandwich

These Premises Are Alarmed — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 11:53:10 -0800

I'd like all my past, present and future Twitter activity to get saved to a text (csv or xml or whatever) file on Dropbox. I'd like to think about this as little as possible. What's my best bet? I don't really trust Twitter to keep all my activity online for the rest of eternity. Dropbox is great because it sits on the actual filesystems of multiple computers I keep in multiple locations. I've done one-off dumps of twitter activity in the past, but never keep it up.

I have Linux or OSX systems to run this on. I am very comfortable with the basics of unix cron, output redirection, etc.

I would just like something that runs in the background, recovers from downtime gracefully, and spits out plain text. If I have to use something different to build an archive to present day, I can live with that.

Help me crowdsource an archival project for my public radio show.

melodykramer — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:05:51 -0800

I am trying to create a search-able, browse-able archive for the public radio show I work for. I would like ask our audience to help me populate this archive, because there are many tech-savvy people in our audience -- and it seems like a project that could easily get done through crowdsourcing. I'm looking for software/websites/advice for managing a large crowdsourced project to make sure the archive is accurate. My goal is to reduce emails to the show saying things like "I remember hearing an interview with an author who did this, but I don't remember who." The archive, as envisioned, would be browse-able by year, month and week.

I have a friend who is helping me create a database populated with material from an API query for the past few years. However, many of the variables for older shows would need to be filled in by hand because they don't exist in the API or aren't fleshed out the way recent entries are. I'd like to ask our audience to help with this part, if they'd like.

I also have a dream of connecting the material somehow to other variables for guests, so that people could search our show by categories like: topic, guest birth date, show host, month of broadcast, etc. I don't know how to do this.

I am looking to connect with people/software/websites that will make this easier. I know the NYPL did something crowdsourced with menus. If you've worked on a crowdsourced project -- or something similar, I'd love to hear your thoughts.