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Re: Martin Luther King and Encarta



Our reference library staff have argued that in-person use has been
sharply declining for two years because more and more of our indexes
are now available online to our students and faculty who can easily
access them from home and work.   Since most of our archival
collections are not online, I cannot provide similar figures.  The question
however is not an easy one to answer, for it depends on the inclination
of the researcher to go beyond what is readily available.

Using an example, say one year you get the records of John Smith,
a lumberman and entrepreneur.   Then ten years later, you get the
records of Bill Jones, another lumberman, and who it turns out,
bought out the John Smith Lumber Company, renamed it the Bill
Smith Lumber Company and kept it going.    We have tried here
to make our indexes cross-index so a researcher working on one
lumber company will be led also to its previous name and owner,
for after all, the building sites, lumber operations, even the personnel
may have remained the same.   Even if our finding aids fail to make
an implicit connection, often the staff "know" this and will impart the
information to the user.     Once materials are scanned or fixed in
some medium, such as microfilm, and available beyond the archives,
it is increasingly difficult to show users these connections.   Our
Panton, Leslie and Company Papers were microfilmed onto 26-reels
of microfilm and sold through Primary Source Media.   In the 15 years
since, we have turned up enough new records to create possibly two
new reels of film.   Some people do contact us for more information,
but I suspect that untold numbers do not.    Again I have no idea of how
many folks are "using our records" through the microfilm at various
repositories.

Regarding the internet, I am aware of one university who has gone
far in putting its finding aids and information on collections online, but
when you enter that website, before you can access that, you must
"register" online.   I'm sure those registrations count as user statistics
and also give the archives the means to contact the person to see if
they can be of further help.

Dean




Dean DeBolt
University Librarian
Special Collections and West Florida Archives
John C. Pace Library
University of West Florida
11000 University Parkway
Pensacola, FL  32514-5750
Tele:  850-474-2213;   Fax:  850-474-3338

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