NSS News Online

[Scott McCrea]

The University of South Florida has scanned and OCR'ed at least 639 issues of the NSS News and made them available for download, as PDF's, on their website. It is very well done, nicely organized and searchable. There was a post on today's TAGnet saying:

http://guides.lib.usf.edu/content.php?pid=86148&sid=640893&search_terms=nss+news#

Click on "Browse" to see the issue covers (there's a "next" button to
peruse other issues). Click on "Advanced Search" to search (although I
haven't tried that yet). They also have about 15 issues of
"Speleodigest". These PDF's are apparently indexed by way of OCR.

[David Grimes]

I have been saying for a long time now the NSS should offer the news online, I would have never guessed someone would beat them to it. It seems like allot of work to scan all those though plus could there be some copyright issues?

[PYoungbaer]

David,

It's not a matter of someone beating the NSS to it. This is part of the Karst Information Portal (KIP)project.
There is an NSS KIP Coordinator under the President's Office (Todd Chavez at USF). The most recent report can be found under the President's Report to the BOG at:
http://www.caves.org/nss-business/reports/1011/PRESIDENT-1011.pdf
Scroll down to report # 14.

[John Lovaas]

Peter beat me to it- NSS Act# 80-809, passed at the August 2008 BOG meeting:

Policy on Placing the NSS NEWS on the Web 8-15-08:26

Issues of the NSS NEWS that have been in print for at least five (5) years will be made available for posting on the Karst Information Portal web site. Maps of caves in those issues may be extracted and archived separately to prevent public download.

[Wm Shrewsbury]

They didn't actually "beat us to it", we had them do it for us. The USF storage site is part of the Karst Information Portal, or KIP. The NSS, via a push from Cheryl Jones, approved all NSS News' could be posted 5 years after the publication date (Act 80-809). Later, the BOG passed two more acts submitted by Lee Florea: Act 82-826 added Speleodigests older than 5 years; and Act 56-827 added the abstracts from NSS Convention guidebooks. I should also mention that this was made possible by Lee Stevens donating her entire collection of NSS News from issue #1 up!

Once the new office accounting software is up and running we plan to offer them for sale up to and including the last calendar year. We've got some new hardware and software being installed at the office so it will probably be in the fall.

Thanks Cheryl, Lee & Lee!

Back to taking notes...
Wm Shrewsbury
NSS-OVP

[David Grimes]

Well, I guess you learn something new every day.

[SuperM]

Amazing!! I'll never get anything done again!

Thanks for posting this link, Scott!

[NZcaver]

Previous Karst Information Portal announcement on the forum

I'm a fan of the KIP project. I've used it many times over the last couple of years.

It would be real nice to be able receive the current issues in digital format too...

[Leitmotiv]

I remember when I came across the University adding these back in late 2009. I was shocked and happy! Here's a link to yet an even older topic of the discussion:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=9339&start=0

What I am wondering, is when are they going to resume adding the NSS News, the remaining Bulletins and Digests? As it is, its stood at a standstill for over a year, but someone here said they have every issue since # 1? So what's the hang up?

[Don Cuevas]

Thanks to all involved in this project. I truly appreciate your efforts.

EDIT: I'd be happy to pay dues and rejoin if I could get the current and more recent issues.

Saludos,
Mike Warshauer
Retired NSS caver living in Mexico

[Dave Bunnell]

I think it would be great to offer NSS News subscriptions online. I've been making PDF versions of all the issues in full color since Jan 2010 but the NSS has yet to come up with any way to make these available to members. It would be especially good for foreign members who have to pay a large postage surcharge for hard copies. I've suggested that the NSS could make some money by selling CDs of the fill color 2010 issues or offering these subscriptions to at least foreign members.

So far the main use I've been able to make of the full color PDFs is to provide them to people whose articles have been published in the News. I can't post a bunch of them on the web without some sort of board approval, although a sample full-color issue is available from the News web site.