More pretty pictures

Finally, the books I ordered from Poland have started to arrive.  Great stuff on the history of artillery and some books for future projects, but it also included post cards I can use as illustrations.  Interesting thing about using pictures - if there are paintings over a certain age they are public domain, but you can't use a photo of say a rifle without permission of the photographer.  All makes sense, but you don't appreciate some of the nuances until you get into it.  I've also had a devil of a time with illustrations with some books from the communist era - many of the publishers don't exist and the rights of some pictures have either lapsed or trying to track down the artists leads to blind alleys.  Luckily I have a good deal of great pictures and artifacts I've collected here and there that suddenly fit together on this project.

Back in Action

I'm finishing up the last bit of research and fitting it into the body on the book.  I'm still waiting on some books I ordered from Poland on artillery of the period.  The great thing about the internet.  In the ye olde days before the internet (sometime before we invented time) you used to have to go to Books-In-Print, look up a book, hope it was still in print and ask your bookseller to order.  A week or two later you may get an answer.  For foreign books, I used to go to foreign language bookstores in NYC, buy something and then write to the publisher.  That was when international postage coupons and money orders rules the day.

I was also lucky in that I had access to NYC public library and the University of Illinois Library at different times and could get access to books and documents fairly easily.  This is were I first ran across Michael Stachowicz and I started collecting information on the Polish army of the 18th century.  Slowly, but surely I get around to things.