NASA Wants Your Ideas for Digitizing Rocket Scientist's Notes

Try a revolutionary new invention - A computer...

A computer & software might be able to scan and convert most of the copied typewritten text into a word-processing or similar file so that it can be corrected - but that's not going to be easy, if the part I looked at is representative. The marginal notes are run in various directions, and not always readily associated with the portion of text that triggered the comment which is being recorded. I have not seen a program demonstrated as capable of converting this portion into something worthwhile. The lines, arrows, and other means to show linkage between notations and text are still more difficult, not least because they are poorly reproduced and often incomplete, as well as inconsistent in intended meaning or purpose. Sketches are yet a further step away from automatic transcription.

IF these notes were scanned several times, the results fed into conversion programs (plural: several independent ones, preferably), and the contents compared and voted upon [by computer & software], the results would still need a lot of human oversight to correct. And this would require not just grammarians and others capable of working at getting an accurate transcription. Instead, people with sufficient knowledge of the science, the history, the engineering aspects of the sketches, and other facets of the document would need to "proofread with understanding of content", a much more difficult and complex undertaking. All of this must be done from a neutral point of view regarding the persons and actions described, serving accuracy first. Finally, the results would need to be DISPLAYED for public consumption, and this should not lose any of the context, such as relationship of commentary / marginalia to original report.

Putting an original page on the left, and a corrected text & transcribed notes on the right might be a start, with footnotes, appendices, and other explanatory information at the back fo the book. Of course, we must also assume that the re-publication will not be by print edition alone, but as electronic files also. Almost certainly, there ought to be both a .pdf or other passive format for anyone who merely wishes to read the book, and one in some word-processing or active format to permit compilation of commentary, insights, linkages to historical context, and on and on.

Hire draftsmen and technical writers to reproduce the documentation in an electronic format. This ensures correctness not possible with computer software, and creates jobs in the process.

Why over-complicate things?

Perhaps a "distributed" approach similar to the SETI@Home model: each participant receives a page to transcribe at their leisure. With enough participants, multiple transcriptions could reduce errors.