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Archiver > GER-VOLGA > 2009-11 > 1257893530


From: "Brent Mai" <>
Subject: Re: [GV] Fw: Welt-Post copies (a poll for the List)
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:52:10 -0800
References: <640534.25271.qm@web112020.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <640534.25271.qm@web112020.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


A point of clarification:
Those who purchase translated census documents are contributing to the cost of acquiring the original material, not the cost of translation, which is provided (at least on my part) without cost - regardless of its worthiness of esteem.
..............Brent..............
Brent Mai, University Librarian
Director, Center for Volga German Studies
Concordia University
Portland, Oregon


-----Original Message-----
From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of hugh lichtenwald
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 9:54 AM
To:
Subject: [GV] Fw: Welt-Post copies (a poll for the List)


Hallo List:
 
It has been a week since I posted the below message and asked for responses. I must say the response was truly underwhelming. The replies to date are as follows: 4 would happily pay for a disc of Welt-Post pages with letters from their villages; 1 definite "no way."
 
There were in excess of 30 other responses but they were seeking information on individual issues of the Welt-Post referring to their villages of interest.
 
While I am also of the opinion that GR data should be readily available an at no or low cost, I would like to point out that such a circumstance is in fact rarely the case.
 
You are willing to pay a goodly sum for a census (me too), but census translations are not something I hold in high esteem. The language skills required to translate surnames and dates is even less than the basic language skills I possess.
 
You gotta pay for the translation, you say? I don't for one minute believe that. There are too many out there with a basic knowledge (or better) of Russian who would happily translate a census at no charge.
 
You gotta pay for printing and publication, you say? Not if you post the translations to the GR-List. There would then be a permanent record of the data readily and openly available to all at no cost.
 
Who would do such things? Apparently damn few folks. Didn't happen and there's no going back now.
 
Getting back to Die Welt-Post, apparently too few of you are aware that the Index of all the Welt-Post "Letters from Hell" is for sale from AHSGR for a mere 5 bucks. With that Index you can reference the page, issue and date of the letters from your village of interest and order them from AHSGR....someone already sent me a response to this: "ya, and never hear from them again!"
 
 Okay, I can't speak for AHSGR on that account, but I can tell ya this: If there had been a great deal of interest in obtaining low cost copies of the original Welt-Post pages on diskette, you could have had complete village "letter" collections much faster than it will take me to complete the translations (it'll take another year or maybe two before I finish).
 
What good is the original when I can't read German, you say? Well, the original is always preferable to someones translation....especially mine. I would venture a guess that there are many readers of German script out there who could provide translations, many most likely better than mine.
 
Now you will have to wait until the translations are finished. MAYBE AHSGR will put them together in some sort of publication along with copies of the originals....MAYBE NOT, but if you buy Sinner's Index from AHSGR and save my translations, you can do that for yourself.....in a year or two.
 
Hugh Lichtenwald, grumbling from the farm in Monetta, SC
VC, Wiesenmueller
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

--- On Mon, 11/2/09, hugh lichtenwald <> wrote:


From: hugh lichtenwald <>
Subject: [GV] Welt-Post copies (a poll for the List)
To:
Date: Monday, November 2, 2009, 2:54 PM


Hello List:
 
A lot of folks have asked for the original newspaper versions of the "Letters from Hell" that I've been translating from Die Welt-Post. I don't know how many times I have explained how I got them and how anyone can get them from AHSGR.
 
The process is quite tedious and is a burden on the staff at Lincoln....but after giving thought to the process I may have a suggestion.
 
If there is enough interest in obtaining a copy of the original Welt-Post pages containing your village's "Letters," perhaps AHSGR would go for a project that would make the pages more readily and easily available...like making a "Master Diskette" of the letters from individual villages and offering them for sale through the AHSGR Store.
 
Right now, although the letters are available if you know the procedure for buying them, the process is very burdensome and time consuming for the Lincoln staffers, so it's probably a good thing that not many folk know how to go about getting copies of the "Letters." If "Master Diskettes" were made for each of the Village's "Letters" all the staff would have to do is "dupe" the Master and ship it out instead of having to hunt through the microfilm every time someone discovers how to order the "Letters."
 
The "Master Diskettes" would take some time to produce and this expenditure of time would only be practicable if there is enough interest and customers willing to pay a decent price for such a disc of "Letters."
 
Non-member prices would probably be higher than member prices. Perhaps something like (for members): $20 per village for those villages that have a large number of letters, $15 for the villages with somewhat fewer letters, $10 for those with even fewer, and $5 for those villages having multiple letters but even fewer than the previous.
 
Of course, the customer would also have to pay shipping and there would be no Master Diskettes made for villages having only 1 or 2 letters in the Welt-Post.
 
All this is speculation on my part. I have no idea if such a project would be cost effective. I also have no idea whether there is enough interest out there for folks to buy copies of the original "Letters" in German.
 
SO...let me know if you'd be willing to buy a Diskette of the "Letters" from your village as published in Die Welt-Post or whether you'd just as well wait for a couple more  years until I get finished translating the "Letters" and "the heck" with German language copies.
 
The prices I suggested may not be those decided by AHSGR (is such a project is even warranted). The villages, according to my suggestion, would break down as follows:
 
20 bucks: Frank, Franker Chutor, Norka, Beideck and Balzer,
15 bucks: Brunnental, Doenhof, Huck, Kukkus, Kolb, Kutter, Messer, Schilling and Walter,
10 bucks: Walter Chutor, Grimm, Kauz, Merkel, Wiesenmueller, Neu Doenhof, Kratzke, Dietel and Bangert,
5 bucks: Bauer, Dinkel, Eckheim, Franzosen, Hussenbach, Jagodnaja Poljana, Moor,
Neu Messer, Neu Walter, Rosenberg, Rosenheim, Schoental, Strassburg, Tscherbakowka, Urbach and Warenburg.
 
So, I guess this is a Poll to see if there's interest in such a thing.
If there is little/no interest, then so be it.
If there is a lot of interest, then the next step is to convince AHSGR.
 
Dunno...Let me know and we'll see what happens.
 
Hugh Lichtenwald, from the farm in Monetta, SC
VC, Wiesenmueller
 
                   

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