I absolutely agree. Any newspapers I've had microfilmed in the Washington County
Historian's office have been saved, understanding that better technologies may
come along to better reproduce. Scanning will be, ultimately, such a technology,
in spite of the pooh-pooh-ing of those who dismiss the technolgy as too fragile,
etc. Coming from a museum background before I became a municipal historian, my
training was that we saved everything we could. It's anathema to me to see papers
copied and dumped because they are "crackling away," or "too brittle to last."

Regarding that last issue, Nicholson  Baker's article "Deadline" in the July 24,
2000 issue of The New Yorker magazine is a must read for anyone who places total
faith in the permanence of film. It shatters that concept. I've worked with film
collections since 1975 and I have seen nothing to suggest that any microfilm can
last the length of time they are suggesting. Moreover the initial quality leaves
so much to be desired, I can't imagine heaving the whole lot of a local paper on
someone's say so that a microfilm master copy will be all that is needed for a
few thousand years. It flies in the face of preservation, the laws of physics,
andof  museum conservation training to place that kind of faith in a single
medium of storage, especially that stores not the original but a captured image.

I've felt this before I read Baker's article and I feel more strongly about it
now. There needs to be open discussion and free questioning in the scientific
community dealing with preservation and conservation on this matter.

A local newspaper in our region nearly ended up in the dump because of such
philosophy. It's been preserved, though heaven only knows where it will end up
without money. I am at loss as to understand how we can have absolute faith in
the prospect of a medium that has only been around for less than two centuries,
and itself so fragile, being the saving element in our printed history. It also
seems to be contradictory when one considers the notion that newspapers are being
thought of too fragile to last, hence the "film them now before it too late
theory." Is film's substance that much more durable? I need more proof. A sad
point about newspapers are the tons of them being resurrected from landfills and
barely showing any signs of disintegration after decades and decades of being
expected to rot away.

Will this issue be discussed openly?

[log in to unmask] wrote:

> Is any effort being made to preserve or archive the original newspapers (many
> printed on crumbling, acid paper)?  Despite the fragility and crumbling
> nature of these yellowed originals, they nevertheless contain photographs and
> illustrations that reproduce terribly on microfilm.  Many of these printed
> newspaper photographs, despite their screened format and grain, are the only
> "originals" we'll ever have.  These crumbling papers should just be put away
> somewhere and saved anyway.  Future technology may make it possible to make
> further use of them.  I fear that libraries may be all too eager to destroy
> originals once they are microfilmed.

--
________________________________
Joseph A. Cutshall-King
Grant Writing/Fund Raising Services
  Affiliate of Charles R. Putney, Development Services for Nonprofits;
Bennington, VT

PO Box 154
693 County Route 49
Cossayuna, NY 12823

Tel.: 518-692-9505
E-mail: [log in to unmask]