College of Arms needs donations

[Wendy Colbert]

I have been asked to post this by Mistress Jaelle of Armida, Laurel 
Designate.  Please pass the request along to anyone you think may be in a 
position to help. Thanks,  Lady Irene von Schmetterling, Clarion Herald
---------------------------------------------------
Unto the Good Folk of the SCA, does Mistress Jaelle of Armida, Laurel
Designate sends greetings:

I will be taking over from Master Da'ud ibn Auda as Laurel at the end
of June 1996.

At the present time a picture of every registered piece of armory is stored
by Laurel in 11 filing cabinets and 27 boxes.  These files are not
replaceable and have been through the LA riots, hurricane Hugo, the LA
earthquake, as well as other near misses.

Therefore, one of my goals as Laurel is to scan all the registered armory
in the SCA.  This would have several purposes.

Primarily, it would allow us to have an off-site backup - so if something
happened to the files they could be reconstructed. It would also allow us
to archive (not destroy! but archive) a bunch of the files, so whoever is
Laurel wouldn't have to have their home taken completely over by the
files.

After scanning the picture, we would print it out on a color printer, so a
copy of the picture could be placed in a special notebook, and the rest of
the file archived.

After everything is scanned, we hope to be able to make a CD Rom of
the pictures so that the emblazons (pictures) as well as the blazons
(words) would be available to whoever wants them.

But, there are over 20,000 registered pieces of armory. Scanning them all
will take a *long* time.  And, while I have plenty of volunteers to do the
scanning, the office has only *one* scanner.

So, I am calling on the thousands of people in the SCA for help. Do you,
or an organization that you work for, or know of, have computer equipment
that they would like to donate?  It would be used for a good cause, and
since we are a not-for-profit organization, as the IRS puts it, a 501(C)3,
the book value of the item could possibly be a tax write off.

What we need, according to my computer gurus is:

1. We need full page, flatbed scanners that support at least 8 bits of color
information (more optional) and boards for them.  This is the most important 
item on my list.

2. A 300 DPI or better color printers. Not necessarily a color laser
(though I wouldn't turn one down) but color ink jets such as HP Color
Inkjet or Apple Color Stylewriter, for example).  This is the second most
important item on my list.

3. Mac, IBM-PC compatible or other computers that write DOS standard
HD 3.5 diskettes (1.44 meg) Those are minimal requirements.  The
ability to archive on DAT tape or CD-ROM would be a big plus.  This
is the least important, although important, as some of my volunteers have
computers, but don't have color scanners.  Also, if anyone has a spare
laptop, that would be quite useful as the Laurel Office travels a lot.

Note: we are not demanding state of the art equipment here.  If your
company, for instance, has some 386's they don't want, the Laurel office
will take them. If they have upgraded their 8 bit color scanner to a 32 bit
one, we will be more than happy to use the 8 bit ones.  I'm not picky,
I am just trying to get the tools so we can do the job.

If you have any questions, or if you think you can help, please contact
me:

Judy Gerjuoy
PO Box 7903
Silver Spring, MD 20907

(202) 737-4609
e-mail jaelle at access.digex.net