An anonymous reader writes: I am old, by internet standards. I live in an age-restricted community (the reservation, AKA God's waiting room). This community is celebrating it 50th year of existence and it has grown (10K+ residents). There is a small (5 volunteers) 'history society'.
I was asked about scanning some of the old documents to make them more accessible for research. I said this was doable, but challenging — then images would have to be converted to text for search ability. I envisioned some database that could handle meta data and a GUI front end for the searchers. My research led me to the conclusion that plan was way beyond out ability. Most meta data is in the HTML/XML world and that would require a web server for access.
I did find a free product (I consider this personal use) called Elyse (http://silkwoodsoftware.com/info.html). That it does not run in Linux annoys me, but it works well for most of the geriatrics here. That it is free, easy to use, and seems to fulfill all the basic requirements tells the tale, there are no deal-breakers I have seen so far. Text files would have to be searched individually, but the tags would get you to the files.
If the /. community has had any experience with this, or any other file management software that allows use of tags, I would appreciate the comments. The previous generation thanks you.
