OPR images on scotlandspeople .......

DavidWW · Post by **DavidWW** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 7:43 pm

Rab wrote:As Russell pointed out that was my question. It just seems to me that SP updates in general seem to take a long time. That's why I was wondering whether it was labour or bureaucracy that was slowing things down.

GROS would themselves admit that projected dates for the OPR images and previous new datasets have been overly optimistic.

Rab wrote:I sort of understand now what is slowing down the OPR images in particular. Maybe I'm missing something here as I still can't get my head around it. SP has an existing index for OPRs live on the site. From that we can send for a copy of an entry. What I can't understand is why the digital images can't be acquired the same way. I'm going on the basis that each page of entries has a unique index number, maybe that is not the case.

Very simply, it turned out to be the case that it was totally impractical to attempt to link the entries in the current OPR index available on ScotlandsPeople to the new digitised images. OK, GROS could be criticised for not having foreseen this problem, but I'd argue that any such criticism is unfair, verging on the grossly unfair; and please note that I'm no apologist for GROS or ScotlandonLine/ScotlandsPeople

Instead, GROS took the view that the correct way to proceed was then to re-index the OPRs so as to match the new, digitised images........

David

Post by **emanday** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 8:19 pm

Instead, GROS took the view that the correct way to proceed was then to re-index the OPRs so as to match the new, digitised images........

Which seems to me to be an eminently more sensible way to proceed.

It's an unfortunate fact of life that "stitching" new technology onto older stuff usually turns out not to be the most efficient or economic way to do things.

Rab · Post by **Rab** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 11:19 am

Thanks for the answer David. For many years I was a database administrator so have a decent understanding of system should work. That's why I found it difficult to understand why the current system would not work.

The main thing is I suppose that the images are scanned. Like emanday says though it will be better in the long term to index it properly rather than stitch it together.

Post by **emanday** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 12:24 pm

Hi Rab,

As an ex database developer, I used to have to do a written explanation to many of my clients detailing why a "Stitch job" usually took longer and was, therefore, more expensive than new development.

david black · Post by **david black** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 6:02 pm

2007 arrives with the site STILL saying images will be available in 2006. Is it TOO much to ask to have something posted on the official site updating us? Probably not because it takes such an effort to write 3 lines of text.

JustJean · Post by **JustJean** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 6:23 pm

Hello David

I feel your frustration and certainly as a consumer your complaint is justified. Passing along your comments to GROS via a contact form would not be out of place. As a User Group member I'm as keen as everyone else to see the records released and available for research! You can be sure that everything that can be done by the User Group is being done in order to hasten the release along. When they are ready for a public announcement I'm sure TalkingScot will be one of the first places to carry it.

Best wishes
Jean

DavidWW · Post by **DavidWW** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 6:51 pm

david black wrote:2007 arrives with the site STILL saying images will be available in 2006. Is it TOO much to ask to have something posted on the official site updating us? Probably not because it takes such an effort to write 3 lines of text.

I understand your frustration.

My understanding is that the 25th January is now the operative date, - but I can only admit that it would have been entirely appropriate to make this fully clear on the SP site ...............

David

Susan · Post by **Susan** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 11:33 pm

There is mention on SP that they hope to have the OPR images available towards the end of January - it was included as part of the "Xmas Announcements" which they posted onsite before Christmas. There was details of the fact that Customer Services would be observing the Scottish Public Holidays, then it mentioned the OPR images and the New Year Statutory Data.

Susan.

ninatoo · Post by **ninatoo** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 2:30 am

Any news on the RCE's? Not that I can look at anything new right now anyway....

JustJean · Post by **JustJean** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 2:48 am

Hi Nina

'Fraid the last prediction I heard was the RCE's were coming after the OPR's but maybe just maybe (fingers crossed eyes squinted tight shut lips moving in silent plea) the amount of time lapse between will be brief.

Best wishes
Jean