finding help

[JeanneMarie]

I have a score that IMSLP does not have at all and would like to donate it. It is a Kalmus orchestra score for Bellini's I Capuleti e I Montecchi. I was prepared to pay my local copy shop to scan this close to 600 pages in three volumes (10" x 13"). It would even be okay to pull the score apart and spiral bind it afterward since the binding has gotten pretty roughed up.

But after lurking around this forum a while, I realize that it is much more than grunt work. The score is old, mostly handwritten, and often quite faded. (Remarkably, much of the fading occurs in empty measures.) There are not too many pencil marks, and they should be preserved if possible. There's quite a bit of tape holding facing pages together. Of course, we'd like the file(s) to be as small as possible under the circumstances with decent quality. Just scanning a few pages, full size, tells me these files would be gigantic if I created them. I simply cannot make myself available to get proficient with all that could and should be done and then get it done.

So can anyone advise how to get some help? Happily, I'm in New York City so I'm sure the talent is here. But I don't feel very confident about what questions I should ask or how to judge qualifications. I'd just love to go through a person or company or institution already involved with IMSLP, paying a fee or making a donation as appropriate. All other things being equal, I'd rather deal with someone in or near Manhattan.

Any suggestions will be very gratefully accepted. Thanks.

[coulonnus]

Read How to make PDF files in https://imslp.org/wiki/IMSLP_talk:Scanning_music_scores, skipping Procedure No.6. If you scan at 600 dpi each page should not be much bigger than 100 KB.

[JeanneMarie]

I do appreciate this contribution to my education and will read it all. However, after I finish, I'm quite sure I'll be looking to pay for some help to get this done.

But thanks.

[coulonnus]

Perhaps you could donate this score to a Google-Books library partner https://books.google.com/googlebooks/li ... tners.html, explaining that you wish it to be scanned and appended to Google Books? e.g. the New York Public Library. So you neither pay nor do the scanning/page-assembling job.

[JeanneMarie]

Aha! just what I couldn't find on my own. Thanks so much. I will contact NYPL after Labor Day. We'll work something out.

Really grateful.

[coulonnus]

I also find a project with archive.org and the Library of Congress: https://archive.org/projects/ "Contact info@archive.org if you are interested in having your collection digitized".

[JeanneMarie]

Just acknowledging with another sincere thanks....