[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: New Yorker



Adding a kumquat to the apples and oranges in this,

I started my career aeons ago as a book restorer, and I still remember the
thrill of working with rare books at a university. One day I held a rather
small binding by Cobden-Sanderson and thought "This is perfect." The
delicate raised cords, the worked endbands, the sparse gold tooling, the
type and paper, the ink, the thickness and color of the leather, the
everything came together to create a perfect book. It was awe inspiring.

Surrogate copies, no matter the media or excellence, cannot transfer that
sense of beauty any more than a reproduction (blech) of Botticelli's Venus
can evoke the same emotions as the original (omigod) in the Uffizi.

I do not suggest for even a nano-whatever that every piece of printed paper
should be held in reverence. Most things in our archives are pretty mundane
and have little aesthetic appeal. Heck, our original state constitution was
typed and three-hole punched! Arizona was on the cutting edge of technology
back then, by golly by jingo by bob.

I am not against creating surrogates, they are a necessity in many cases,
but we certainly must not pretend that they are identical to the original.
Brand X is not as good.

Taking advice from Kim,

Michael headed-for-the-briar-patch McColgin
Conservation Officer
Arizona State Archives

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
     In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                   *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
    http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>