[vcf-midatlantic] An idea for preservation and a proposal for the future of the VCF's library of written media.

[Douglas Crawford]

Just a thank you for bringing it up.
It may yields some new ideas or rethink.
I'm one that values
this old material and do lament the chopping up of the originals
to get things scanned.  Maybe magazines that would wear and
fade but I've seen things destroyed that should not necessarily
been done.

Before I knew better, in the first year I was involved in
VCF, I assisted in an effort to scan some
remarkable Burroughs manuals- removing the pages from the
most amazing bindings, which were trashed, and sending the
beautiful pages to archive.org. Archive.org is awsome, and
the material belongs there, but there had to be a better way
for this particular set.

Lets keep talking about these issues.

On 5/13/2022 9:58 AM, Lou via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> Hello all, I don't speak much on here often enough but I have been on the
> list and in the community for a little while now. Something came to mind
> the other night when I was doing research on preservation of physical book
> printed/written media and came to find not only several different kinds of
> methods and businesses that can scan these forms of media to a digital form
> but there are also scanners that exist which can do this job well without
> it being destructive to the books. The issue of course is that these
> scanners are by no means cheap for the average small scale user wanting to
> preserve a few of his books/manuals and some of the services out there that
> can offer this are either not much cheaper and/or only offer the
> destructive method of scanning this media (I.E. unbinding books to scan
> individual pages).
> 
> After some time thinking about this, hearing some colleges and old
> libraries/research facilities having these for their own preservation
> efforts a thought came to mind...Why shouldn't the VCF have one for their
> own preservation efforts as well?
> 
> The idea is simple enough, an investment in a non-destructive book scanner
> for the VCF which can be used to back up the existing library of physical
> written media, manuals, history, research, and more which can be put into
> digital form and be accessible to anyone who needs it without difficulty.
> It can help many countless individuals in the community who would need that
> information but isn't uploaded or documented anywhere else. A form of
> digital preservation and online library could be a great benefit to
> everyone.
> 
> Finally, a further benefit is those who have their own materials they wish
> to preserve as well could do so with a suggested donation to the museum as
> well. It can be a service for other collectors who want to preserve their
> media as well and could even be added to the main library! Hosting of these
> materials could also be done and uploaded to archive.org to shoulder off
> the need of hosting our own site (unless desired of the community). It's a
> benefit with no real downside to the museum or the community at large.
> 
> I know there will be some finer details to discuss and some minor issues
> that might come to light (especially anything involving possible copyright)
> but aside from this it can be a useful service for everyone. I just wanted
> to bring this idea forward to see what everyone thinks of it.
> 
> Thanks for reading this out!
> 
> -Lou
>