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Re: institutional patronage



To comment on the last sentence of Dean's first paragraph, I had a lot of
one-shot requests last year from people wanting to publish various peices
about how construction equipment evolved over the course of the last century.
(Some were quite reasonable, others borderd on the bizarre - one dear soul
wanted to write this entire history, with photos, on one page!) Also,
Caterpillar Tractor celebrated its 75th anniversary last year, so I had
several requests stemming from that.

Concerning his last paragraph, I keep unfulfilled information requests on file
on the chance that some future accession will apply to it, but how to make
that good intention bear fruit consistently still escapes me. Major new
accessions are announced in our magazine, but most accessions range from
single records to enough to fill a 9x12 manila envelope; how to publicize
changes in resources on that small a scale?

And, of course, I hear from people who can't believe that I don't have all 375
lineal feet of manuals, 175 lineal feet of sales literature, 81,000
photographs, 1,600 videos and 135,000 slides in our collections on-line for
their immediate access, let alone cataloged.

Best wishes,

Thomas Berry, Archivist
Historical Construction Equipment Association
16623 Liberty Hi Road
Bowling Green, Ohio 43402
Phone 419-352-5616
Fax 419-352-6086
tberry@wcnet.org
http://www.hcea.net

Dean DeBolt wrote:

> It is important to realize that as research institutions, the use of our
> collections depends a great deal on the whims and vagaries of users as to
> their personal quests for information.   One year might be a heavy use year
> because it is the state centennial, and another year might be a heavy demand
> because it is a railroad anniversary.
>
> Many genealogists believe that once they have visited a repository, they
> don't need to visit again.   It is hard for them to recognize that our
> resources DO change, but equally we don't do as good a job at identifying
> those changes.   It is also hard to track users.  I have folks who wil ask
> 'what's new' and their last visit might be one year, five
> years, or one week ago.
>
> I have noticed declines in usage due to (a) weather--too hot, too cold,
> threat of hurricanes; (b) gasoline prices; (c) worry about events--Y2K, for
> example; etc.    I have tried to gauge our use to see if there is a steady
> line or core but without success.
>
> I also do believe that the internet is affecting our use quite heavily
> because of the common myth that "everything" is on the internet. I'm finding
> users are not checking sources on the internet, so if a person titles a
> piece "Florida Censuses" the user doesn't read the fine print ...they assume
> this is everything, their name isn't there.  Okay, go on to something else.
>
> I believe we have to constantly keep our users informed of our collections,
> changes, etc., and that is a tall order.
>
> 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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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>