Re: [ARSCLIST] Long-term/preservation audio (delayed)

[stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Smolian" <smolians@xxxxxxxxx>
> Not the best choice of comparisons.
>
<snip>
And then he quoted:
> > For example, saving **every** newspaper in the U.S.  probably isn't
> > necessary.  But saving every third day might be 99% as useful, for
> > historians in the future.
> > At a certain point you get diminishing returns, and you want a certain
> > minimum "sample size."
> > But if, by "arbitrary" it is meant "random (and thus representative),"
> > then a cost-effective middle-ground can be reached.  :)
---
The problem is that in most cases newspaper articles are researched to trace
either trends or series of events...so that having every third (or whatever)
day would be worse than useless in research! For example, suppose you were
tracing the history of WWII, and your arbitrary selection left out June 6,
1944! Or stock market trends, and omitted "Black Thursday!"
Or, worse yet, were culling an archive of the Chicago Tribune, and kept only
a copy headlining "DEWEY WINS!"...
Steven C. Barr