by Since uploading over 500 videos to Vimeo PRO — I’ve been thinking about content and production and restoration and preservation of all the things I’ve worked on over the arc of a lifetime — and I decided now was the time to start digitizing the mountains of paper and film and video and audiotapes that engulf the small gully of my world.
I wanted to relaunch Boles.com as my archival and restoration and presentation center. Boles.com is my longest-held website domain and the originator of much of the content you read here and elsewhere. All the images ever served here on Boles Blogs have been called from my Boles server — so Boles.com — has always been a busy, powerhouse, domain, but usually working in the background.
The digitization of content process has been a long, hard, slog — but there’s enough content online there now that I invite you to head over there are punch around on some links and read some files. Some media files and scripts and other writing projects are not yet able to be online because of collaboration agreements or issues of Copyright.
The first change you’ll notice on Boles.com is that I created four new content areas: Scripts, Media, Writing, Periodicals and Archives.
Perhaps, 9% of my work currently appears on Boles.com. More is on the way! One problem slowing the process is one of access and random memory: Many of these scripts and projects are in storage somewhere, and the randomness of my memory is making me wonder just where everything is actually located! This is a longform effort that will take tide and time.
What you see online now at Boles.com is what was available at the top of the heap in my immediate arm’s length area. There’s old stuff, some REALLY old stuff, and some new stuff — all, in sum, a pretty accurate representation of who I am and how I became what I am.
Not all the content is produced or perfected or golden — and I did that by design. If you want to learn to quantify and qualify the true up-and-down arcs of a career in motion, you have to learn from the pitfalls as well as the pinnacles.
The only momentarily odd thing about all the new content on Boles.com is that since most of the .PDF files are scans are images from the original typewritten manuscripts — the files tend to be on the huge side. That was a determined decision. You always want to create the best possible quality you have at hand because, in a few years, that best effort will feel old and dated.
There was no intention for file compression or space-saving. Most of the script files average in size between 30MB-100MB and one script in particular weighs in at monstrous 455MB — I think because the script was originally printed on textured, color, paper and the scanner was trying to capture the first essence of the pages in a flat, black and white, scan. I appreciate that effort at direct preservation.
One thing I’ve learned from living and working on the internet for the last 25 years is this — “What’s big today, is small tomorrow!” — so a huge .PDF file right now might be overwhelming in the immediate download, but in the blink of broadband eyeball, those big files will be nothing and shall load in a snap!
If you have any old scripts of mine, or other interesting content we may have produced together — or if you have something else that might be a good fit for the new Boles.com — please get in touch!
That’s a lot of links and files!
Ha! Yes, it took forever, but it’s a good start. Lots of different and interesting stuff there now.
It is a good thing to have digital copies. Paper doesn’t always last forever.
Having digital copies is something I’ve been trying to get going for many years — and instead of trying to do it all in one heap, getting the stuff online in smaller chunks over a longer period of time is fine. Something is better than nothing at all.