Re: [ARSCLIST] Mass Digitization

["Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karl Miller" <karl.miller@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>   While those of us who value this history work hard at changing attitudes and
priorities, I wonder how we might be able to do a better job at convincing those
empowered to make changes to realign priorities. Maybe our strategy needs to
focus not on the inside, but on the outside. In short, I wonder, who really does
place value on our recorded history.
>
For the most part, it would seem to be the individuals who collect the old
recordings! The manufacturers, who (may still) own many of the original
recordings, seem only to be interested in the handful which they can profit
by reissuing (although US copyright law promises their eternal ownership...!);
the public institutions lack the funding as well as the interest (the latter
perhaps because they can't afford to hire the proper interested people...?);
and various levels of government are only as interested as the preservation
might affect their chances for re-election!

However, most of the private collectors lack time, funds, or both to act on
their
assumption of inherent value in the recordings and/or their documentation.
Worse yet, there exists a subset of collectors (especially of newer material)
whose primary comprehension of "value" carries with it an appropriate
symbol for the currency involved...!

Steven C. Barr