26 May
2006
26 May
'06
6:04 p.m.
A good chunk of my collection of documentation will be going to a
"Historical Resource Center" (aka Library) that is being built in the area.
There is also a good chance that at least some of the hardware will
eventually go there as well. I'm currently planning on starting to clear
out some of the documentation starting tomorrow, as I desperatly need the
storage space. As they don't have a building yet, it will be moving from my
storage, to thier storage.
Does anyone have any advice as to what kind of stuff should and shouldn't be
in a "Computer History" section?
Zane
27 May
27 May
6:36 a.m.
At 03:04 PM 5/26/06 -0700, you wrote:
A good chunk of my collection of documentation will be going to a
"Historical Resource Center" (aka Library) that is being built in the area.
What kind of library is this? Does they specialize in old computers? My
experience with libararies is that they throw out ALL old computer stuff
(anything but MS Windows XP). One of my major sources is the outlet store
for the local county library system. You can't believe the stuff that gets
donated to them and that they turn right around and either throw out or put
in the outlet store. MY advice is to visit their library and see what they
have. If they don't have the kind of stuff that you're donating then it's
probably for a reason!
Joe
There is also a good chance that at least some of the
hardware will
eventually go there as well. I'm currently planning on starting to clear
out some of the documentation starting tomorrow, as I desperatly need the
storage space. As they don't have a building yet, it will be moving from my
storage, to thier storage.
Does anyone have any advice as to what kind of stuff should and shouldn't be
in a "Computer History" section?
Zane
11:09 a.m.
Consider this as a Me Too posting. ....
I have seen what the local libary dumps to save shelf space.
Any book not checked out in a years time is pulled from the shelf and evaluated for
retention every 6 months.
Some get sold at the yearly sale, the rest get sold by the pound.
I have 2 8 foot book stacks full of books and several more boxes full of early books and
software, waiting for a perminate home or at last resort listing on epay.
I was told by two libaries that most of the collection would be thrown out durring the
sorting and the rest would most likely go in a year or two.
The other Bob
On Sat, 27 May 2006 10:36:58, Joe R. wrote:
At 03:04 PM 5/26/06 -0700, you wrote:
>
>A good chunk of my collection of documentation will be going to a
>"Historical Resource Center" (aka Library) that is being built in the area.
What kind of library is this? Does they specialize in
old computers? My
experience with libararies is that they throw out ALL old computer stuff
(anything but MS Windows XP). One of my major sources is the outlet store
for the local county library system. You can't believe the stuff that gets
donated to them and that they turn right around and either throw out or put
in the outlet store. MY advice is to visit their library and see what they
have. If they don't have the kind of stuff that you're donating then it's
probably for a reason!
Joe
>There is also a good chance that at least some of
the hardware will
>eventually go there as well. I'm currently planning on starting to clear
>out some of the documentation starting tomorrow, as I desperatly need the
>storage space. As they don't have a building yet, it will be moving from my
>storage, to thier storage.
>
>Does anyone have any advice as to what kind of stuff should and shouldn't be
>in a "Computer History" section?
>
> Zane
>
10:48 p.m.
Bob Bradlee wrote:
I was told by two libaries that most of the collection
would be thrown out durring the sorting and the rest
would most
likely go in a year or two.
The other Bob
Most librarians are assassins. The sad fact is that in most places,
where they are funded by the local government, they are only open
now because it would be politically embarrasing not to have them,
and only stock titles useful for the local schools to be able to train
students to use libraries.
I won't make this long, but the bottom line is that you have to find
some collector, or a museum which has an endowment to hold on
to collections, or they will be broken up. Only a few libraries exist
outside of universities that have anything of interest to me anymore,
or to most here, and most of them do not acquire books that are
not antiquarian.
For what it's worth, JPL got rid of a huge amount of incredible
books and documentation over the last 15 years, just to name
one place that produces fantastic potential acquisitions around
the area I am located in.
Jim
28 May
28 May
10:53 a.m.
At 09:48 PM 5/27/2006, jim stephens wrote:
Most librarians are assassins. The sad fact is that in
most places,
where they are funded by the local government, they are only open
now because it would be politically embarrasing not to have them,
and only stock titles useful for the local schools to be able to train
students to use libraries.
And not only that, but in many small communities in the USA there
are movements afoot to merge the public library (as run by a city)
and the school district's library.
I mentioned this book here 15 months ago: Nicholson Baker's "Double Fold":
http://dir.salon.com/books/review/2001/04/27/baker/index.html
http://j-walk.com/nbaker/doublefold.htm
He talks about libraries, the destruction of original newspapers
and poor microfilming.
- John
27 May
27 May
11:34 a.m.
At 03:04 PM 5/26/06 -0700, you wrote:
It's not a public library, though once it is built, it will be open
to the public. I actually have a major say as to what kinds of
things go into the computer section of the Library, which is why I'm
asking for input.
This isn't going to be the sort of place you go to find kids books,
or novels, like I said, this is a "Historical Resource Center". It
is dedicated to history, and the main person behind this sees the
value of a computer section, and I know pretty much the entire Board
of Directors. They are also interested in at least some of my
hardware, either as exhibits, or a way of enabling people to recover
genealogical data they might have on classic Media (I've already
helped recover a bunch of data off of 5 1/4" floppies). It's
intended to become one of the major Historical libraries in the
country.
And yes, I do know what they currently have in the way of books and
periodicals. Right now the computer section is primarily various old
consumer oriented computer magazines.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
A good chunk of my collection of documentation will be going to a
"Historical Resource Center" (aka Library) that is being built in the area.
What kind of library is this? Does they specialize in old computers? My
experience with libararies is that they throw out ALL old computer stuff
(anything but MS Windows XP). One of my major sources is the outlet store
for the local county library system. You can't believe the stuff that gets
donated to them and that they turn right around and either throw out or put
in the outlet store. MY advice is to visit their library and see what they
have. If they don't have the kind of stuff that you're donating then it's
probably for a reason! 
6:56 p.m.
(anything but MS Windows XP). One of my major sources
is the outlet store
for the local county library system. You can't believe the stuff that gets
donated to them and that they turn right around and either throw out or put
It's the same round here (or was, now donors seem to have wised up a
bit). I remmeber when a lot of science/computing books were donated to
the local library, and they sold them all off at _very_ low prices in a
book sale. I picked up things like 'Handbook of Mathematical Funcitons',
'The ARRL Antenna handbook'. 'Communicating Sequential Processes'.
'BCPL
-- The Language and its Compiler', and many more less famous works for
about 10p each.
-tony
28 May
28 May
4:01 a.m.
Hi,
Tony Duell said:
My recent scores from our local library include "Computer and
Telecommunications Handbook", "Postscript Language Program Design,
Tutorial and Cookbook, and Reference Manual" (3 volumes), "CP/M The
Software Bus", "Programming with Fortran 77", "Using the Osborne
Computer" and "Microwave System Engineering Principles".
Not bad for a bit of small change!
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
(anything but
MS Windows XP). One of my major sources is the outlet store
for the local county library system. You can't believe the stuff that gets
donated to them and that they turn right around and either throw out or put
It's the same round here (or was, now donors seem to have wised up a
bit). I remmeber when a lot of science/computing books were donated to
the local library, and they sold them all off at _very_ low prices in a
book sale. I picked up things like 'Handbook of Mathematical Funcitons',
'The ARRL Antenna handbook'. 'Communicating Sequential Processes'.
'BCPL
-- The Language and its Compiler', and many more less famous works for
about 10p each.
12:17 a.m.
At 10:36 AM -0700 5/27/06, Joe R. wrote:
At 03:04 PM 5/26/06 -0700, you wrote:
OK, second reply to this message :^)
I specifically asked about the clearing out of old materials. The
answer is that this is something that is directly against the
founding principles of the "Historical Resource Center", and when the
time comes they'll get a larger building rather than dispose of
books. As I mentioned this morning, I know the Board of Directors,
and know for a fact that libraries getting rid of old books is
something that really ticks them off.
BTW, as of about 1pm this afternoon, they now have a very good start
on a Classic Computer section with books dating back to the 50's.
That's just the start, as we ran out of time to dig more books out,
and all I dug in was the storage unit that is primarily
"non-computer".
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
A good chunk of my collection of documentation will be going to a
"Historical Resource Center" (aka Library) that is being built in the area.
What kind of library is this? Does they specialize in old computers? My
experience with libararies is that they throw out ALL old computer stuff
(anything but MS Windows XP). One of my major sources is the outlet store
for the local county library system. You can't believe the stuff that gets
donated to them and that they turn right around and either throw out or put
in the outlet store. MY advice is to visit their library and see what they
have. If they don't have the kind of stuff that you're donating then it's
probably for a reason!
6579
days inactive
6581
days old
8 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
caveguy＠wowway.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
jwstephens＠msm.umr.edu -
rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com -
stanb＠dial.pipex.com