[11870] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
5.25 floppy disks -- summary of responses
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stgermain, Joan)
Wed Dec 10 20:24:22 1997
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 16:59:22 -0600
From: "Stgermain, Joan" <Joan.Stgermain@noaa.gov>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Hello All,
A while back I posted a message which raised the following question:
Since computer technology has moved to 3.5" floppy disk drives, what are
other libraries doing about the 5.25" floppy disks that came with books in
their collections.
I would like to thank everyone who responded; your comments have been
valuable to us. What follows is a summary of the responses I received.
Three libraries are currently copying the 5.25" floppy disks to 3.5"
One commented that the DOS xcopy command is better for this purpose
than diskcopy
One library is circulating the 5.25" floppy disks and hoping their patrons
can find a machine that will read them
Two respondents questioned the legality of copying disks given copyright law
One library is currently considering copying the 5.25" floppy disks to 3.5"
disks
"We currently are talking about this as a preservation issue and
considering reformatting all to 3.5". Patrons have already asked for
them to be reformatted so they can be used.
One offered this suggestion:
"What I would do is remove the 5.25 drive and install it in another
computer, as virtually every PC is able to recognize and use those
drives. As for general data and information, keeping it all in one
format makes sense for accessibility, as both the libraries I've
worked at copied files to 3.5 inch disks. I imagine something like
this will happen again in a few years as the most likely succesor to
the 3.5 inch drive is a zip drive of some sort."
And finally one librarian had this to say:
We too had some materials on 5.25" disks. We've not transferred them
to 3.5" disks or CD-ROMs or any other newer format. If we were
consistent, we'd need to transfer all our 16mm films, film loops,
etc. to newer formats. (And is that legal?)
Do you really need to keep the titles with the old technology? In
all cases, we've decided that the CONTENTS, as well as the format,
are out of date so we've just withdrawn them. Problem solved!
Thanks again to everyone who responded! If anyone has any further comments on
this matter I would appreciate your forwarding them to me as I am not
currently a member of this list.
Joan St.Germain
Electronic Resources Librarian -- Boulder Labs Library
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email: joan.stgermain@noaa.gov www.bldrdoc.gov/library/library.htm
phone: (303) 497-3003 fax:(303) 497-3890
U.S. Department of Commerce, 325 Broadway MC5, Boulder, CO 80303
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