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Quick aside, it wasn't originally on purpose that every news article began with an exclamation mark. But now, it feels as an obligation, it's essentially tradition.

Anyways, there are a number of things that I feel are newsworthy at the moment, but I'm compartmentalizing them. We've recently gotten a ton of new and very important materials onsite and on the way, which I will highlight in another article. I started this well over a month ago (as you can see by the article creation date), and I'm finally willing to say it's here.

One thing I've been jealous of regarding ephemera sites is that their searches were able to search the text within an image without human tagging. While I adore the tag functionality we have, as it allows me to research very quickly, I recognize that it is limited in terms of application. Not only does it rely on me having tagged for what I'm looking for, but it also relies on a level of in-knowledge from the user regarding how the site organizes things.

There are also things within ephemera that I haven't tagged, and so if a user wanted to find something specific, say a particular men's case or LEGO set, they'd have to dig for it themselves. There's nothing wrong with a little treasure hunt for information, but the goal here is to demonstrate the extent of the site's collection accurately and effectively.

An example of this is that I was interested in somehow categorizing the taglines you see in print media. "Strong enough to stand on", "The most creative building toy", etc. It is useful in dating artifacts without provenance, as they provide extremely useful anchors. And while I could go back and create tags for things like that, it would largely just make the tags messier than they need to be. Things like that need OCR, and would be a huge time save.

And so, just like that, the site's collection has been scanned and is ready to be searched. Over the next few months, I'll be slowly going through and vetting each text scan, as some had way more trouble than I would've expected. It won't be a perfect facsimile anyways, but even now, it will be excellent for finding those specific things you can't with simple tags. For example, I've often a need to look up specific names of executives, OCR is the perfect tool for that.

And that's not to say that OCR is replacing tags, only that it is a new way to search materials onsite. A different way, which I think is good.

I've also started the plunge into tagging LEGO materials with 'LEGO' and region (USA/Canada), as well as Canadian sets after 1972. What I predict is going to happen from this is that our original Gallery, which used to have a little over two hundred tags, will have over five hundred tags. We've seen it already with tagging luggage styles, which I am committed to. But this is far too many to be user-friendly in the way it is currently being presented.

Essentially, the site's Gallery will remain a legacy feature for users, but the goal is to have the Search be the best of both worlds. I think the Gallery is quite nice in its presentation for general use, but it has a number of issues in regards to proper research.

The next thing to get revamped will likely be the Books page, as with almost two hundred, and much more to come, it's completely untenable as a linear list. I quite like having a chronological reference for form numbers, but I'd also like something to folder out catalogs, instructions, dealer catalogs, idea books, etc. You know, instead of having literally the entire site's collection of ephemera on one page, just having little dropdowns with categories. Maybe some based on associations as well: Imaginations Inc., Oxydol, Kraft, pack-in materials, dealer materials, etc. I think that would help immensely to keep someone from getting overwhelmed, as between Samsonite materials from 1910 to 1973, Samsonite LEGO materials in two different countries from 1961 to 1988, I don't want a user to feel frustrated by not being able to find something.

Of course, this does not mean we're outright uprooting the Books page and removing it entirely, I just want a better organized user experience. The original page will just be a click away, as I think a form number reference is immensely useful.

One thing to keep in mind is that both Books and the Gallery were implemented and built before this site began tagging/organizing its information, and while those systems worked for their time, I realize they've long since done their job. Now that we're accounting for so much information, I've been trying to plan ahead to build something that will be able to support what we're trying to accomplish here, rather than just do what we've always done.

What I've been discovering is that we're not the only ones scanning things other than instructions, there are plenty of sites doing similar work. But what they rely on is foreknowledge, not necessarily accessibility. If you want to find something, you have to know where you're looking. Which is not inherently wrong, only that it misses an opportunity to cater both ways.

We here also have the unique feature of having the larger Samsonite history integrated directly into the LEGO one, which has been immensely helpful in both understanding materials as well as gaining new insights.

Another future update that I'm excited for that has been tinkered with over the last month is the reopening of user accounts, allowing users to propose edits/corrections to existing articles as well as write their own articles, as I want collaboration to be much easier and not require jumping through hoops. It also allows for credit and such to be much easier to supply.

Uploading images is something we used to have and I still want, but I'll likely put that on hold for a bit longer. It has to do with the project structure, how the site stores its collection does not make such a feature easy to implement.