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

[W2HX]

> 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

A physical book will likely outlast any digitized version of it by hundreds of years. And don't underestimate the fact that whatever digital rendition of the book is created now, in 20-30 years it may have to get re-converted to whatever is current.  I remember when .djvu files were considered the archive format of choice. Then PDF came out. There will be a time when even PDFs won't be readable anymore and hopefully someone will have converted the scans before that happens. 

I used to be involved in the digitization of wax (and amberol) cylinder phonograph records. The issue arose there too. Lossy? Not lossy? Ogg vorbis? Conversion to new media formats in the future? Etc. 

But books, if properly handled, can exist for centuries. 


73 Eugene W2HX
Subscribe to my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/w2hx-channel/videos

-----Original Message-----
From: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic-bounces at lists.vcfed.org> On Behalf Of Lou via vcf-midatlantic
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2022 9:58 AM
To: vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org
Cc: Lou <despairempire at gmail.com>
Subject: [vcf-midatlantic] An idea for preservation and a proposal for the future of the VCF's library of written media.

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