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Re: Acquisitions received electronically



We are constantly receiving electronic files and records
as well as gifts of CDs, diskettes, and the like with information
recorded electronically.   At present we have three generations
of computers in the Department (286, 386, pentium) plus
three kinds of disk drives (5.25, 3.5, and various speeds CDs)
along with a small backlog of operating programs and word
processing/spreadsheet programs.

I am constrained in how much staff and time I can reasonably
allocate to maintaining electronic media, thus our present
policy is to print out (using laser and acid-free paper) any
electronic file.   We also print out any characteristics such
the information showing when constructed, etc.   We also
record on a standard accession when and how we received
any such record.   This creates an audit and accountability
trail.    In cases where we get the same file later (say a
revised file), we've opted to treat that as a new record and
not superseding the original.   This has not happened too
often, but I don't believe it a good use of staff time to do
page-by-page comparisons or electronic "compare" on
files just so we can see whether it has simply been expanded
or edited.   I may rethink this if duplication becomes too
common.

The nature of the electronic record and our budgeted staff,
time, equipment, etc. dictates this common sense though
not-entirely-perfect process.   We have received some
super-large files that cannot be manipulated with our
computers.   These we have placed on the library LAN
and used a high-speed laser printer to produce hard
copies.   I had thought this might be a good file storage
medium, but one day when the Library lost its server,
all the files were also lost.

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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