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Re: information supporting archives space



For a somewhat humorous but true look at the problems of digitization, see an article in _Federation of Genealogical Societies Forum_ Winter 1999 p. 9 "Jefferson County--A Digitized County" by Michael John Neill. This is a fictitious description of a county that decides to digitze all its pre-1900 records and put them on CD-ROM and makes all the mistakes in the book. John Michael Neill inserts himself into the story as a "radical records activist" who is the one voice of reason (unfortunately, not listened to). In the year 2040, the county discovers that the data on the CD-ROMs has deteriorated to the point where it is illegible (I e-mailed the author to point out that by 2040 they probably wouldn't have had equipment to read CD-ROMs made in 2002, the one thing he left out of the article). JM Neill collapses in the county records office upon learning this, and insists on filling out his own death certificate! 



Christine Crawford-Oppenheimer
Special Collections Librarian/Archivist
Culinary Institute of America
433 Albany Post Road
Hyde Park, NY  12538-1499
(914) 451-1757
c_crawfo@culinary.edu

>>> Eric Fair <fair@CUA.EDU> 02/14/00 11:49AM >>>
Greetings Everyone:

We have the VP for finances visiting soon, and we are arguing for a move
to better facilities with more space.  We recently learned that he has
been getting opinions (not from the profession, mind you) that archives
will not need a lot of space in the future due to digitization,
electronic records, etc (the argument being there will be a lot less
paper records taking up space).  Does anyone know of any
sites/publications with information/statistics to refute this?
Any help is greatly appreciated...

Sincerely,
--
Eric Fair
Archives Assistant/GLP
The Catholic University of America
Department of Archives, Manuscripts, and Museum Collections
4 Mullen Library
Washington, D.C.  20064
202-319-5065
fair@cua.edu 
http://libraries.cua.edu/archives.html 

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