----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl Miller" <karl.miller@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
"Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
***Having started this discussion, I should note that my "save it all" comes
with certain "excepts!" For example, there is no reason to save data in
duplicate forms (i.e. an ARC recording which was issued on six to twenty
different labels, all using the exact recording!)
How much time would be needed to make such a determination? An informed
individual might know, but how likely is it that a technician would be so
informed? How likely would it be that even a curator of a collection would know?
You certainly couldn't expect a cataloger to know, even a music cataloger. They
have enough to do just keeping the cataloging rules and the methodology of MARC
on their radar.
We don't have an informed workforce and from my own experience, I see little
evidence that we even have an administrative infrastructure in libraries that
value such skills. I just don't see how saving it all is possible, even if we
had the available technology. We don't even have an educational system which
supports the teaching of the appropriate skills. Most of us have learnt these
things on our own. It has taken us years to develop and refine what we do.
When it comes to saving it all, I think the archives of this mailing list is
what needs to be saved. It seems to me that the contents is a great guide to
what needs to be learnt by those that come after us.
However, for me, the main reason we "can't" save it all has to do with the
lack of importance our society places on saving it all.
Okeh...first, I was thinking in terms of my/the project to complete an
"ultimate 78rpm phonorecord catalog/discography/sound archive. Thus, the
digital sound for only one copy of a multiply-issued side would need to
be archived (and one assumes that this project would be overseen by
qualified individuals...) but, every different issue of that side would
have to be placed in the related database, with a link to that one
sound file. This means that "save it all" would apply to the database
of phonorecord-relevant data...but NOT to the archive of related sound
files!
Now, on a more general basis, "save it all" obviously has to be qualified...
both by "do we have room for this" and "will anyone else ever be interested
in this?" The former, of course, is often more important than the latter.
Nonetheless, I can think of a number of important (to me) data that may or
may not have been preserved for posterity. For example, I would be very
interested in learning when my house was hooked up to "city water." That
was, obviously, once in city files...but I suspect even if it still exists
at the back of some file drawer, no one knows it is there...!
As another "for example"...while going through a bunch of cartons of VERY
misellaneous paper ephemera, I discovered I had inadvertantly somehow
saved a box of old newspapers from the 1959-60 era, which my father had
accumulated (he was also a pack-rat) for unknown reasons...possibly to
wrap pears (a failed project which left us with a basement room full
of rotted pears...)?! Very interesting to read in any case...!
Further, I agree that the digital archives of ARSCLIST should most
definitely be preserved!
Finally, XXI-Jahrhundert folks seem to be fascinated with the $$$ they
can make by placing inadvertantly-preserved material/ephemera on eBay
for auction...but seem not to realize that their posterity will have
the same attitude toward CURRENT ephemera! Further, at least IMO, the
reason for preserving intellectual property, including things like
newspapers, magazines, sound recordings, still and moving images, usw.
is so our posterity (assuming we have such a thing) will have the
necessary information to understand and/or comprehend our times.
But...the current likelihood of something being preserved rises
exponentially with its perceived future monetary value...one
wonders, of course, how many would-be nouveaux riche are pondering
closets full of "rare" Beanie Babies (TM Reg. U.S. Pat Off.)...
Steven C. Barr