2012/1/7 Dominic McDevitt-Parks mcdevitd@gmail.com
[...]To be fair, the scanning was a small part of what we did previously. I think anyone who's come to the first three days this time (nine so far, and I expect more tomorrow than on the weekdays!) will testify that it's gone pretty smoothly. I think the way we've changed the format shows we've learned from some past experiences. That's why this time we've selected a particular topic beforehand, we're all staying in the same place, and I and others who have done it before have a good idea of what we're doing with the machines. We've also got slightly better scanners this time, and special NARA loaner laptops, so the equipment really does work. If we had a learning curve before, I we're better now because of it. I think our earlier events were important in their own ways, by exposing Wikimedians to the archives behind the scenes, to the Archivist of the United States, and to the work Wikipedia is doing with NARA. We scanned some, but there was too much going on for it to be a focus. That's the idea behind the ExtravaSCANza, though.
Actually, the part where I got to see the archives and hear the Archivist was quite interesting. I had meant to say that the part of the trip I made which involved the *scanning* seemed pretty useless to me. And this seemed to be *all* that the ExtravaSCANza was about. Assuming that, I didn't see much point to coming this time.