[THE BBS DOCUMENTARY LIBRARY]

  AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LIBRARY

While working on the BBS Documentary, I was overwhelmed with the depth and degree of related subject matter involving BBSes. Since I am a completist at heart, I started on a long and involved path of collecting concepts, characters and events that were part of the BBS experience. This was handled partially with some scripting tools I wrote to arrange information so I could easily drop in facts or files as I stumbled upon them or were sent them. The output of these tools is what composes this site.

However, the very nature of film and video meant that there was no way I could give the appropriate amount of on-screen attention to all the information I was gathering. But it can't be considered too important to have all this information in one place. When I found my sketches of historical facts being used by college and high school students in reports, I knew I had to make the whole research project more permanent.

This site is the result of trying for that permanence. In here are concepts, sticky wickets, and chased facts that arose during the production of the documentary. Many of them will have no screen time, but that doesn't make them any less important. Some of them contain information that has been inaccurate or misrepresented in popular lore, and this site is meant to make sure there's a searchable location where the best-told version can exist.

There's no hope this page will ever be "complete" in the most common sense of covering all the known bases about this subject, but it represents a good workspace for me, Jason Scott, before the information finds its ultimate resting home elsewhere, likely the Wikipedia website or maybe in some sort of CD or DVD form.

Corrections and additions are always welcome.

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