[ih] Internet-history Digest, Vol 20, Issue 4

Sat May 8 14:24:16 PDT 2021

I am jumping into the middle of this and haven’t seen what went before, but thought you would like to know

A full set of (paper) IENs is contained in the collection I gave to the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA..

And you will be amused to know that when I told a group at ISOC that my wish was for a computer storage medium that lasted as long as paper, everyone laughed and thought I was joking.  I wasn’t.  So far I have lived through:  library catalogs on cards, microfilm, microfiche, punched cards, computer tapes (both 7 and 9 track), floppy disks, small and large hard disks, thumb drives, information servers, the web, and the cloud (and probably a few I’ve forgotten).  Each has had more or less a 10 year time frame, before we moved on to something else and obsoleted everything that came before.  And try to find something that stands still on the web - now you see it, now you don’t. True, all these processes are faster and more portable, but not necessarily more durable. I say, historians should not count paper out, until they have something that can outlast it.

My 2c for what it is worth.

Jake

> On May 8, 2021, at 12:00 PM, internet-history-request at elists.isoc.org wrote:
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>   1. Fwd:  [xbbn] Re: Museum archiving (was: Re: IENs) (John Day)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 8 May 2021 14:41:47 -0400
> From: John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net>
> To: BBN Alumni <xbbn at xbbn.org>, internet-history
> 	<internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> Subject: [ih] Fwd:  [xbbn] Re: Museum archiving (was: Re: IENs)
> Message-ID: <34EF09B8-F26E-49B0-B982-096AA220DD13 at comcast.net>
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> Sorry forgot Reply-All
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>> Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>> From: John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net>
>> Subject: Re: [ih] [xbbn] Re: Museum archiving (was: Re: IENs)
>> Date: May 8, 2021 at 14:39:47 EDT
>> To: vinton cerf <vgcerf at gmail.com>
>> 
>> Yes, I know. They weren?t my concern. Generally, it isn?t librarians who have these ideas. They understand. It is further up the chain that there are barbaric ideas. Much of CBI is available on-line. I thought that once they scanned material it became available.
>> 
>> They are currently renovating the ?math building? at Illinois. Altgeld is one of the oldest buildings on campus and the original library, now the math library. It has a glorious reading room with those great ?working and learning? murals of the early 20thC and they are making sure that they preserve and repair the glass floors of the stacks!! (Only have to light every other row on two floors.) The building and the math dept deserve each other. The floor plan has half floors and other twists and turns that make it almost a maze, and the secreted Bourbaki?s office!  ;-)
>> 
>>> On May 8, 2021, at 12:07, vinton cerf <vgcerf at gmail.com <mailto:vgcerf at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> that is not the case here. Univ MN Library retains the originals.
>>> v
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 11:36 AM John Day via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
>>> The thing that scares me are the administrators who think that that because the material has been scanned the original artifacts are no longer needed and can be discarded. It is far more important than that. At best, it means the artifacts don?t need to be handled as often, which as the centuries go on becomes more and more critical.
>>> 
>>> John
>>> 
>>>> On May 8, 2021, at 11:12, David Walden <dave.walden.family at gmail.com <mailto:dave.walden.family at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> i have been an amateur but serious historian for a couple of decades and accessing archives and observing professional historians over that time.  I think commitment to scanning/digitizing documents is important. Archives with tight budgets employing people not used to engineering level salaries and other compensation tend to see scanning/digitizing as *very*, perhaps prohibitively, expensively.  Document contributors on this list might be able to help them think about digitizing costs and methods.  
>>>> 
>>>> Back maybe to the sense of Dave's question, archives may not be interested in everything one has to give.  It may take more than one archive to find homes for one's materials.
>>>> 
>>>> Finding aids are important, as Craig noted.  An archive depending on google-like searches is less desirable in my view.  
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On May 8, 2021, at 10:11 AM, John Day via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org> <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> A slight correction, Craig. 
>>>>> I am a recognized historian in the History of Science and Cartography, primarily 17thC-18thC China and published widely. I have spent considerable time in archives across Asia and Europe and with private collectors. My experience goes well beyond computer museums, as I told Dave off-list, including junk rooms in the Vatican. (Sometimes one finds things in the oddest places.) ;-)
>>>>> You are right about access. Electronic copies can be nice, but there are important things about provenance, etc. that one can only learn by seeing the artifact itself.
>>>>> John
>>>>>> On May 8, 2021, at 08:50, Craig Partridge <craig at tereschau.net <mailto:craig at tereschau.net> <mailto:craig at tereschau.net <mailto:craig at tereschau.net>>> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Hi Dave:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> You asked about museums and their commitment to archiving.  As someone who was trained as a historian and still does occasional archival work for fun, I'll hazard a somewhat structural answer and then John D. can comment on computing museums.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> One can assess archives on at least three dimensions:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * Commitment to ensuring their collections are preserved for centuries to come.  This requires money (for fire suppression and temperature monitoring and the like) and also requires careful evaluation and planning (preserving paper for instance, is different from preserving paintings, which is different from preserving fabrics).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * Commitment to creating finding aids (catalogs, indexes, collection descriptions) that enable researchers to find items in the collections.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * Commitment to making their collections available for research (or public display).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The last may surprise folks but there are a number of institutions that have strong views about who should and should not be able to use their collections, usually to the detriment of scholarship and the public interest.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> (And, if you want an example of exactly how not to do all three, consider the team of scholars who were originally given control of the Dead Sea Scrolls).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Craig
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>> *****
>>>>>> Craig Partridge's email account for professional society activities and mailing lists.
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