This wide ranging and thought provoking New Yorker article and discussion have been equally interesting for what they have and have not included.
In the case of the article (which I have skimmed but not read fully) I am wondering the following:
1. The article seems to me to be positioned as an essay -one man and his quest- rather than a news piece.
2. Sharing, not just saving, should be considered in any discussion of microfilming. More people have access to papers/books because they have been filmed and distributed, and because they can actually be used more than once without falling apart.
3. In addition to filming isn't it now possible to scan with a machine that works from above like a microfilm machine, in color without even pressing the bound item between glass plates? (no I do not mean you would only scan and not film and then throw the original away and be stuck with a soon obsolete electronic format - so lets avoid that discussion)
4. Collectors [ and others :) ]sometimes work in their own little vacuum without knowing that library and archival collections exist-did anyone notice in the article any mention of repositories that ARE saving graphic collections like comics? (Bowling Green U, LOC ...) Collectors I have dealt with look at things from a very personal perspective - it only matters to them that they can see and touch and use something- it does not occur to them that there is a difference between "Saving" something for yourself and in the short term, and "Saving" something for posterity and for a wider audience.
As far as the list discussion goes, I think that Sally Gibson made a good point that Archivists and Librarians "can be" as she said "defensive". I think this is shown in this very New Yorker thread by the fact that most people posting have been quick to dismiss Baker (as a nut basically) rather than respond to the challenges he raises. I think this defensiveness was also apparent in the recent "Patriot" thread. Where the dismissive responses focused most on the affront to historical accuracy and were the opposite of what a doctor friend of mine once said about the TV show ER "is it accurate, no. Is it entertaining - yes".
1. What about his assertion that on big filming projects no one really knows if everything has been captured before the originals are discarded. only Dan S ("some things get lost") seemed to be addressing this specific point:
I think its better to address his accusations specifically. You can't show his arguments are wrong just by saying "Baker is wrong". Talk about irony, Baker says archivists and librarians are wrong for throwing out newspapers... Not so assert archivists, "He's wrong, not us!"
I've go on way too long, for anyone who has made it this far, thank you for attention.
Tom Heard
-----Original Message-----
From: Heather Willever-Farr [SMTP:hwillever-farr@MAIL.ACPONLINE.ORG]
Sent: Friday, July 21, 2000 8:55 AM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: Re: New Yorker
I feel I must defend my position for one last time!!! Few of us who have defended Mr. Baker's article have suggested that everything be preserved in its original format (which Mr. Baker would prefer), but that some efforts are made to preserve some of the more noteworthy newspapers or books. I think the desire, here, is to raise consciousness about materials that should be preserved for the artwork contained within them, their artifactual value (i.e. their importance in terms of the history of material goods or our social/cultural history) or because there will be the loss of other important information when certain text/images are transferred to a more "stable" medium. I think most of us are aware that budgetary issues are often paramount in appraisal decisions and that some materials just can not be "saved". These are the realities of our trade. Nonetheless, I think we should be sensitive to the issues Mr. Baker raises.
(And the argument that no newspapers can be saved is a bogus one, since some newspapers have survived and are in fairly good condition. We certainly can not save them all, though.)
This is my last post; sorry to have added another message to the pile.
>>> vcunning@EMMA.TROY.NY.US 07/20 3:53 PM >>>
This has been an interesting thread. I agree with Michael that there is a
lot to be excited about in handling a book from the 17th century. While
there exists a major work on the author I was studying, I was able to find
two watermarks that were not in that scholarly work. It was one of those
"Eureka!" occasions. The object of my study of the 13 rare books was to
establish the rarity of each edition. The curator was then to make a
decision on which to retain and which to sell in order to buy other rare
books for the collection.
Microfilm does not enable one to handle the paper and the vellum, and one
I'd not expect it to but, when working in a preservation microfiling
program, professors would bemoan the loss of books from the shelf. These
same books were so brittle that they would not exist to be used at all had
they not have been microfilmed. Those very professors would probably have
been upset to no longer have access to the information that the
preservation microfilming program had saved for their use and for that of
others to come come after them.
For late 19th century and 20th century books that are falling apart even as
we use them, microfilming and/or scanning is the appropriate response to
preserve the information. Few, if any, organizations have the funding to
give every volume full conservation treatment. Few, if any, libraries have
the space to keep every volume in their collections. Public libraries
regularly shelf-read to weed out books that have not circulated beyond the
initial interest.
Microfilming is not ideal but it is probably the best method for
preservation of information for many years to come. No "eureka's" there.
ronnie c.
Ronnie C.
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Knies [SMTP:kniesm2@UOFS.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2000 3:18 PM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: Re: New Yorker
As an archivist who has recently become very involved in rare book
studies, I have become very sensitive to the physical aspects of
documents. There has been a bias toward intellectual history in this
discussion in the sense that content matters much more than the physical
properties of the document. But the physical properties of a book or a
newspaper, particularly one produced before approximately 1800, provide
substantial information concerning labor history (printing shop practice),
business history (how the printing trade in general operated), etc.
For instance, a single book printed in Germany might contain paper made in
Switzerland, Italy, and France (identifiable by watermarks). This tells
the book historian information about the economic organization of the
paper and book industries, as well as information about how a printing
shop used its materials. Not all of this information can be reproduced by
microfilm or digitization. If the artifact is discarded this information
is lost.
Content is completely irrelevant to these lines of inquiry. To paraphrase
one historian of printing, the only thing we do not do with a book is read
it.
I will, of course, state the obvious and say that we cannot save
everything. But representative examples of everything should be saved or
else where we are choosing to only save intellectual history and throw
away material history.
Michael Knies
Special Collections Librarian
University of Scranton
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Heather Willever-Farr
Electronic Records Archivist
American College of Physicians - American Society of Internal Medicine
Philadelphia, PA
hwillever-farr@mail.acponline.org
215-351-2470
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