".. but who is really going to put in the work or provide the resources.. and if someone did offer up the home or $ to establish, don't the contributors then lose control of the final product? And what of when their interest wanes?"
SteveL:
Who is going to put in the work and provide the resources? That's the question isn't it? Who has the resources to probably do this as effectively as possible? Probably the USGA!
Don't the contributors lose constrol of the final product? What contributors are you speaking of? Those who contribute architectural material or those who want to access it?
In my opinion, any entity interested in seriously collecting these resources can not necessarily ask contributors of the material to give up control of it or they probably wouldn't be very successful in getting people to contribute it.
This kind of effort is very different from the USGA's "artifacts" collection. All that is original. The same does not have to be the case if they collect "information" (architectural material). That they can simply digitalize the material (information) from originals for ease of access for anyone---hopefully from PCs world-wide. The original material then becomes not particularly necessary to maintain at an entity such as the USGA, although clearly they could do that too if the contributors of the material wanted them to.
I don't know what you mean by what happens when their interest wanes? What were talking about is potentially an enormous effort that hopefully could turn into an extremely accessible tool for interested parties of any kind.
You should also know that an entity such as the USGA is probably not interested in collecting this information and digitalizing it all on their own. If there's entities out there such as the AAF or Golfclubatlas.com that has already done some of this there is every reason to assume they would simply hyperlink or hook up their access providing to that resource accessibility. It only makes economic and cost effectiveness sense to do it this way instead of spending the money to digitalize something that already been done for computer accessibility somewhere else. That's the beauty of these web-sites and hyperlinking.
The USGA may be interested in this effort for a single reason only that I feel we all should and will believe it, and that is EASE OF ACCESS TO IT ALL FOR EVERYONE THAT WANTS ACCESS TO IT!
Is there anything wrong with that? Is there any reason at all to suspect or blast an entity such as the USGA for wanting to do that and then doing it?
And if there is, I must say I really don't understand what's going on here. I really don't understand what the motivations and the goals of our contributors are if they have some problem with that which is nothing more than maximum ease of access.
I doubt an entity such as the USGA would be interested in creating a discussion group such as Golfclubatlas.com has whcih is a pretty unique entity. The USGA is very much aware of GOLFCLUBATLAS.com Very much aware!
An entity like the USGA would probably be interested in providing ease of access through computerization to information and then perhaps providing the "link" on their access site where those interested in discussing the info could do it on Golfclubatlas or an entity as effective as we are for discussion.
This, theoretically at this point, is a multi-pronged effort and idea to simply get all this material together for ease of access to it from anyone anywhere who wants to use it or is interested in it!
In my mind, this could be a huge boon eventually for greater understanding of classic golf architecture and eventually all golf architecture. In my mind this someday could turn into a useful entity that may be something akin to the USGA "Green Section" that of course deals very effectively with golf's agronomy.
In the case we're speaking of the same may be provided for golf's architecture!