[345] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Child of Computerspeak
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lee Jaffe, McHenry Library, UC San)
Wed May 27 17:32:59 1992
Date: Wed, 27 May 1992 16:23:07 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
From: "Lee Jaffe, McHenry Library, UC Santa Cruz, 408/459-3297" <jaffe@ucscm.UCSC.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
=======================================Original Message====================
Libraries should first and foremost preserve information in original
form for as long as possible. That is, libraries are archives. If
this means that the public won't get general access, fine.
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Whoa! Did I read that right?
Those two sentences are so rich in debatable concepts that a really
enterprising person could turn this into a PhD dissertation. But I'm
lazy and in the interest of being brief, regardless of what anyone's
idea of what libraries _ought_ to be, the fact is that we have never
done a very good job of preserving information in original form. What
we have done, and been pretty smug about it, is to collect what we
could fit on the shelf conveniently and pretend that the rest wasn't
important. We're talking mostly books here and we've done a real
stinko job of preserving the rest of human culture in any form, much
less in its original form. If that's going to be your best argument
in defense of the book, the book as a cultural institution is in
big trouble. -- Lee Jaffe, UC Santa Cruz
