People say academia doesn't need print books or journals any more - but the printed material may be all that survives the next 50 years, let alone the next 500.
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Its a fair point, but people also underestimate the importance of physical behaviour in absorbing and processing information. I can't remember things as well if I don't also have the feel of the object to attach the knowledge to, or its physical place on a shelf, or colour...
This is so true. Electronic/digital media does not survive long, and there are already many formats that can no longer be read because we don't have the devices any more.
Although we are taking thousands of photographs, they're stored digitally so won't be around in future.
I just saw a thing on NHK about a handmade paper factory (Awagami in Tokushima, Japan) that creates very resilient and translucent paper, which sent a bunch to Ukraine to help them preserve their aging books. There are ways, but just not widespread.
Next 5 yrs? Large sums are spent on research projects, building fancy websites, which last for a few years then vanish. I know of one where the website went off line 6 months after the project ended. We need the print books, but also a means of long-term availability/preservation for the online work
On our Foundation Year course, the Theatre Collection at the university hosts a tour and archive day for the students each year. It’s wonderful. I remember them telling us that various actors and agents have bequeathed huge volumes of their email correspondence to the Collection’s archive, and they
have to print them all out and store them physically because there’s no reliable electronic way to store digital content that will last beyond a few decades.
I think there's a certain paradox to knowledge preservation in that the knowledge has to be accessible for generations to come but not so accessible that it can be destroyed within any one generation (by nature or by man)
I can't imagine working on my thesis without libgen, and that was *with* .edu accounts and JHU library access. Now we'd be lucky if it survives a year or two :(
The documents were James Boswell's journals and correspondence. The main "problem" was that people kept finding more of them in the attics of Irish castles and such, and funds had to be found to acquire them.
That just adds to the problems, doesn’t it? It’s amazing anything was found really.
I did a research MSc in the 1980s and electronic indexes and search engines were really in their in infancy. Much of the literature search was paper based (Chem Abs & Ind Medicus)
For my (librarianship) masters degree 20 years ago, I was using journal databases for literature searching, but still alongside print indices for certain things. Glad to have had that experience!
I *get* the techno-utopian and free information mvmts of the 90s even if they didn't age gracefully. I was born post-Eternal September and was still in awe of how much more access to texts was online vs. my rural library.
Did my PhD in 1973. The library holding was vital. Hand writing drafts. Typing the final script without a word processor!!!! Gallons of correcting fluid.
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Although we are taking thousands of photographs, they're stored digitally so won't be around in future.
I have books from the 1790's in better shape than books from the 1990's.
To edit a large mass of biographical papers, he had to collect all the originals at his institution (Yale), so he could study them easily.
I did a research MSc in the 1980s and electronic indexes and search engines were really in their in infancy. Much of the literature search was paper based (Chem Abs & Ind Medicus)
I *get* the techno-utopian and free information mvmts of the 90s even if they didn't age gracefully. I was born post-Eternal September and was still in awe of how much more access to texts was online vs. my rural library.
Idk if that's reversing or I'm just aging :/