Many of you may not realize the thousands USD I spend on 1956 Buick literature, manuals and ephemera. Additionally, I pay several hundred USD annually for hosting the website (not here on Google-- this is free, but over on 1956Buick.com where all the files live). To date, other than a few scanning donations from some Buick fans, I have never received any monetary compensation for my activities. I honestly do this for the enjoyment and sharing of knowledge, but as the years go on, I do need to have a way to compensate for the expenses. After all, I have a Buick to restore just like you !
I'm going to create a "premium access" section of my website. While I have many items scanned on my website, I have even more that is *not*. Some are quite useful, not so much as they are rare, but because I take the time to detail scan and OCR the documents so that the resulting PDF's are not only preserved in perfect resolution, but you can also search for words within. This is different than what you may find for sale on eBay (and I know-- I've bought a couple to compare). Those are just images, no OCR, poor quality in most cases, and only 1 bit color depth-- they look damn near as bad as a grainy fax page. I was quite disappointed.
In my case, I use original manuals, scan them at 300 dpi in 256 shades of grayscale or in 16 bit color if it's color manual, and then run them through optical character recognition to allow you to have a not only a crisp original copy of the manual, but a SEARCHABLE one as well. You can download them to your local computer, and print out as many copies of the pages as you like-- limited only by the quality of your printer. You can upload them to your iPhone, take them with you to the next swap meet, and search right there at a vendor's tent for a part number. Much easier than lugging around a 1000 page Chassis and Parts book, don't you think?
When I get this completed, you will simply make a one time donation of $75 via PayPal, and I will grant you access to the premium content pages under this section of the website. You will have lifetime access to the documents via the website, but presumably you will also download the documents to your local computer if you have any concerns of me "going away" at any point. You will have access to all NEW content placed under the Premium section of the site, in addition to any of the public items. I think this is about as fair a method by which for you to have a return on your investment in me and this site, and for me in turn to have a method to recoup expenses. I will put together a list of items that will be available under the Premium portion of the site, so that you may judge for yourself if you feel you are "getting your money's worth" on the content. I am certain after just the first few searchable manuals you will have gotten more than fair value, but the judgement will be left to you. Thank you for your support and understanding. |