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Re: newspaper clippings



        Thomas Robinson wrote in defense of saving newspaper clippings:

            I have spent a substantial amount of time and travel going to
archives
        to photograph old newspaper clippings ....  I am doing this for a
university press
        history book, wherein original newspaper sources will be *quoted*
        photographically.  This adds enormous interest and visual impact to
the
        content.  When you remove the context of the historic media, you
convert
        *information* into *plain text*.

        There is much to be said for Thomas' observation about converting
historical media to plain text but I suggest that the important part of a
document is the idea or the information-not the format.  And I further
suggest that sometimes plain text is more useful for understanding the idea
than the media upon it was originally written.  The stone tablets of the Ten
Commandments no longer exist--and if they did very, very few of us could
read them.  Nevertheless, the text has survived something like three
millennia because of its eternal truths.  I doubt that too many 19th & 20th
Century newspaper clippings will last that long unless they change formats.


        Paul R. Scott
        Records Management Officer
        Harris County, Texas

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