I never had the chance to meet Richard Vance but I did read his
material on rebuilding the Aeolian Orchestrelle.  The material is
outstanding and deserves to live on.  The preservation of the kind
of work Richard Vance did and his contribution to the hobby is a major
hot button of mine.  I constantly search for new sources of information
on our hobby and I am concerned that over the years too much of the
expertise and valuable knowledge about making and rebuilding mechanical
music devices will be lost.

In a major way the MMD web site is part of the answer to preserving
valuable information and making sure that that information is available
to new generations of rebuilders and hobbyists.  The World Wide Web has
been a real benefit to our hobby.

Publishing books is very expensive and I believe the financial return
to the author is probably extremely low or nonexistent.  But I also
don't think there is an expectation by these authors that they will
make a ton of buck.  I think they do it to preserve the hobby and pass
on what they know.  Clearly that is what Richard Vance wanted to do.
Having said that, I will buy any book on the subject I can get my hand
on and I would encourage anyone with information to publish it book
form if they like.

For those who are not interested in the book route, I think there is
a better way to preserve more information and to make sure that that
information is passed on to the maximum number of potential users now
and in the future.  In the case of Richard Vance's work, I first would
recommend that of course it be continued on our MMD web site for as
long as there is an MMD web site.  But I would also create a high
quality Adobe Acrobat (PDF file) of the work, perhaps breaking it down
into several smaller separate files.  I have no stock in Adobe Acrobat,
but it is ubiquitous and the readers are free and readily available.
And the file can be locked so that the information cannot be altered.

I would make it available for download on the web site so that anyone
could download and print it with as high a quality color printer as
they want thus creating their own "book".  In the case of Richard
Vance's information, I would add a cover page with a picture of Richard
and information about him so that 50 years from now people would
remember who he was and what he did to contribute to the hobby.
Hobbyists over time could email and otherwise share the file even
if MMD is no longer around (heaven forbid!), allowing future versions
of Acrobat or its successor programs to keep the information alive in
electronic form.

I have always thought I would publish some rebuilding project of mine.
I guess I have to do something worthy enough to publish before I do.
I think that probably is a major reason why few of us don't publish
what we do even though we now have a thousand digital pictures of our
last project.  If I ever do, it won't be a book.  I can't afford it.
If I do publish, it will probably be a PDF file I put together with
lots of pictures and some words around it. Many of the software
packages that now come free with digital cameras now have the
capability to create a collection of pictures with text in a "PDF"
file.  I could easily then attach it to an email and share it with
anyone interested.  Cost would be almost zero and if someone wants
a good quality color "book" of the information, they can print it on
their color photo printer.

For those of you who have already done this, I for one would love to
see what you have done.  I suspect that others would as well.

Bob Humes

 [ I'd like to hear from anyone who has created and published a PDF
 [ document of, say, two hundred pages and including almost 800
 [ illustrations.  I fear it's almost as much work as creating
 [ a traditional printed book, and so the cost to create the PDF
 [ document would approach the cost of preparing the text and images
 [ for a printed book.  -- Robbie