7 Nov
2008
7 Nov
'08
9:50 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
I do know what you mean - but given how thick the magazines are and the nature
of the paper (i.e. it's so thin it would have be perfectly flat to stand an
chance of scanning without bleed-through) I'm not sure if there'd be any way
of scanning them without chopping* the spines. Even with chopped spines, it's
possible they wouldn't go through a sheet feeder anyway (paper too thin and
glossy), so the idea of scanning them would be knocked on the head anyway!
* a practice I really, really dislike, FWIW. I think this is the first time
I've ever come close to thinking it might be an acceptable solution...
It's hard
to justify accepting - but at the same time the museum is the
logical first port of call for anyone looking for a Computer Shopper mag (for
whatever reason). Having scans of them all solves the problems nicely...
I think it would be iorresponsible to accept something like this and then
scan it and not ensure it then went to a 'good home'. I don't feel that
scans are a replacement for the original docuements (They are a lot
better than nothing, but I'd still rather have the originals of stuff
that I am interested in).
Yeah, I agree. But it would be a 'better than nothing' solution in this case.
There is another avenue though, which is just to not have this particular
magazine in the archive at all - and hope that such a complete set might be
offered many years down the line when there's more (hopefully) more archive
storage available (but Will's right - the nature of magazine paper's often
such that it'll likely fast, so may not even last another ten years anyway)
Some donors, including myself would be very upset if
they heard that
their donations had been scanned and not preserved in the paper form, and
would probably never donate anything again.
I think this one's something of a special case, falling into the same category
as other non-specific magazines - all other paper material does get kept, but
the historical contribution that such magazines provide is actually very low.
As a second issue, perhaps it's just me, but I
find it very difficult to
'flip through' scanned documents in the same way that I can flip through
the paper form.
Oh, for sure. Every once in a while I need something from bitsavers; I always
print it out and keep a local copy on the shelf. I can't say for sure the
reasons why, but a physical paper copy's a lot easier to deal with.
Something like this, which, I assume, is not going to
be
indexed, is going to be very difficult to use as a scan.
Probably not - the time required to do so would be better put to other uses,
given the expected demand for these particular scans by researchers.
cheers
Jules