News Library News Online
Vol. 22, No.2/Winter 2000

Table of Contents
Regular Features

New This Month

News Library News
SLA News Division Home

 

Technology Tips

By Laura Mann

First the good news…..

T/ONE, Inc. is racking up some satisfied customers with its "magical" Merlin systems, recently installed at the Huntsville Times, the Birmingham News, and the Winston-Salem Journal.

The Birmingham News purchased Merlin and TRAX systems to provide a total digital imaging workflow solution at the newspaper. TRAX will handle all photo assignment requests, tracking and captioning of scanned images, while the Merlin System manages all wire and local images for daily production, as well as those images in long-term archival storage.

The multi-user, cross-platform systems allow anyone at Mac or Windows workstations to make assignment requests, complete assignment information, caption scanned images, and search and retrieve images for production - either live or archive - in seconds. Merlin Webmaster makes images in Merlin available to anyone with a web browser on the Birmingham News' intranet.

"The savings in time alone will be tremendous," says Director of Photography Walter Stricklin. "Editors can access any pictures right at their desks, rather than having to wait for an (AP) Leafdesk or Mac with a (AP) Leaf card."

The Birmingham News' Merlin system was installed on a Compaq Proliant 6000 dual-CPU Windows NT server with a RAID level 5 disk array. The system will be shared with the Birmingham Post-Herald.

In the same week, the Huntsville Times installed Merlin as its picture desk and photo/graphics archiving system. The paper installed Merlin on its own Intergraph multiple-CPU Windows NT Server hardware. Production Director Martha Reichold said, "The installation went quickly, was on time and painless. T/ONE's staff was highly competent and we are very pleased with the product."

Ginny Hauswald, News Library Director at the Winston-Salem Journal, is also happy with that paper’s recent Merlin installation. Hauswald reports that Merlin 4.0b2 and 3.1.99 were installed there in November. The Journal had used Aldus Fetch, then Portfolio, since 1994. Their TRAX system was installed in December.

Hauswald states, "Our tech systems folks proclaim it one of the smoothest installs in memory…. Users, from librarians to page designers, call Merlin pure magic….It's fair to say that our photo chief and I feel the system is far better than advertised. All I know is that folks call me Smiley now." Hauswald continues, "I was once told that the best way to show respect for employees is to provide them with the finest equipment and tools available. Merlin has done that for us."

T/ONE Incorporated is based in Quincy, MA,. For more information, contact Peter Leabo, Director of Marketing, at (707) 778-9282, or see the T/ONE website at www.t-1.com.

Now the bad news….

The newly formed Associated Press Preservers Users Group met in Orlando in October with high hopes for working on issues for AP Preserver’s development and improvement. Linda Deitch, Assistant Library Director at the Columbus Dispatch, acted as recording secretery for the meeting. According to Deitch, Tom Brettingen, director of business development for AP, informed the assembled group that AP would no longer pursue the sales and development end of the photo archiving (Preserver) business. Brettingen stated that AP’s Technology Marketing department has been virtually disbanded, and cited profitability as a motive.

Brettingen stated, "We are very proud of this product, and we use it internally, but it’s not an area we can develop, support and sell profitably. We’re not…closing the door…we’ve sold Preserver systems and we’ll continue to support ." He also stated that AP will develop Version 4.0, but there is no plan for further development.

Addressing complaints about the current level of user-support for Preserver, Brettingen stated, "I don’t anticipate a decrease in level of support….We won’t say we’ll support the Preserver till 2020, but we’ll give you information to see if it’s good or not good spending decision to go to Version 4." He further stated that there was no timetable set for how long Version 3.6 would be supported.

Judy Habayeb, Editor of News Research at the Daytona Beach News-Journal, stated that the announcement came as "quite a shock." Habayeb wonders, "why pull the plug without asking for input from members, the board, or brainstorming other options?" Carol Campbell, Information Center Manager of The Daily Oklahoman was also at the meeting. Campbell explains, "We're all scrambling around collecting information on other photo archiving systems and stressing over the same old question: What's next?"

Laura Mann is a researcher at Newsday. Her email is lmann@newsday.com.


News Library News
SLA News Division Home

The page was reformatted on 4/8/03. The content, including URLs and contact information, on this page has not been updated to preserve the historical record.

Comments about News Library News should go to the editor.
Comments about the Web site should go to the Webmaster: newsdivisionweb@yahoo.com