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Re: sampling advice



Sampling as a practice concerns me.  I am on a kick like this lately, so
forgive the allusions I am about to make.  Sampling reports that are so
valuable to your institution seems to me a lot like microfilming a newspaper
and then considering the process complete if only two issues a month are
missing from the microfilm that were a part of the paper copies--something
Nicholson Baker brings out as a standard in libraries.

So many times we wonder whether the institutional records of our respective
places of employment will be utilized at all in the next ten thousand years,
right?  I mean, a history of the institution usually doesn't include boring
things like Trustees minutes or administrative affairs memos.  But if you
think they are valuable to your collection, you keep them in the hope (a
virtue, remember) that someday some researcher will want access to the collection.

I'm for not splitting them up, but I fully understand why you would want
to and your logic seems good to me.  But if I were studying one department's
request (say, library science or history) then I may not find any such records
from a sampling, where I would with a complete run.

Good luck!



Russell D. James
History grad student and archivist-in-training
University of West Florida
Pensacola, Florida USA

5406 Persimmon Hollow Rd.
Milton, FL  32583-6700
850-983-0048
neri@iwon.com




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