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Re: New Yorker Pile-on



This is more than a thread, it's a veritable cable!

As a professional formerly in the museum field (collections and exhibitry) I
have to echo that certain objects must be carefully examined, valued and
weighted for long-term preservation -- especially as exhibitable artifacts.

Even newspapers. Specimen samples, of course.

Although newspapers (and other commercial periodicals) are abundant beyond
belief, well-preserved examples will have a great deal more value two to
three generations-plus from now -- if only for the technology(ies) they
represent.

Kevin (I still can't hold MF or Video up to a candle to read by night)
Bunker
Student Assistant
California State Archives

> ----------
> From:         Michael Knies[SMTP:kniesm2@uofs.edu]
> Reply To:     Archives & Archivists
> Sent:         Thursday, July 20, 2000 12:18 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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>

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

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      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>