Re: Paperless society

I find it useful to step back and, rather than think about
paper-vs-digital, think about all of the options we have for
information
storage and retrieval and begin to evaluate each for its
costs,
benefits, etc. Metrics like "old" vs.
"new" are not nearly as useful as
cost to produce, long term viability, cost to preserve,
accessibility,
access dependencies, etc. I look forward to a time when we
consider
books as simply another technology with all sorts of
emergent propeties,
some good, some not-so-good.

I often recommend Linus Torvald's Google Tech Talk about
distributed
source control [0] to folks interested in where things are
heading.
And it is certainly NOT centalized data storage and digital
"master"
copies. If you think about Linus wanting the entire Linux
source code
history readily accessible on his own machine and then think
about
a reference librarian who wants a shelf full of phone books
right
behind the reference desk, I suspect you might see some very
real
commonalities.

--peter keane
daseproject.org
The University of Texas at Austin

[0] http://www
.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8


On Mon, Feb 11, 2008 at 10:38:40AM -0500, Anderson, Patricia
wrote:
> Personally, being a tad on the paranoid side, if the
information is electronic and suddenly disappears, it is
extremely useful to have a paper archive to prove you
weren't hallucinating.  I am a
HUGE fan of redundancy, especially for critical information.
By "critical" I mean any information that might be
essential in case of a disaster response scenario. Phone
books are an excellent example of the type of information
that is often overlooked on a daily basis but which become
absolutely essential in a disaster or crisis. 
> 
> I would really like to see librarians, as a collective,
partner with other service professions to develop an agreed
upon set of core information that requires duplication in a
variety of locations and formats for the purpose of disaster
and crisis preparation and response.
> 
>  -- Patricia Anderson, pfaumich.edu
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounceswebjunction.org on behalf
of David Rothman
> Sent: Mon 2/11/2008 10:04 AM
> To: Carol Bean
> Cc: Jocelyn Shaw; web4libwebjunction.org
> Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Paperless society
>  
> And it is convenient to have a horse-and-buggy if your
car breaks down.  So?
> 
> On Feb 11, 2008 9:51 AM, Carol Bean <beanworksgmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Not so inefficient when the internet connection is
down or non-existent
> >
> > Carol
> >
> >
> > On Feb 11, 2008 9:35 AM, David Rothman
<david.rothmangmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Jocelyn-
> > >
> > > Telephone books are *much* more scarce than
they used to be.  That you
> > > continue to use the most inefficient
available container for this sort
> > > of
> > > information doesn't make the assertion silly
or wrong.
> > >
> > > -David
> > > David Rothman
> > > Community General Hospital Medical Library
> > > Syracuse, NY
> > >  On Feb 11, 2008 9:29 AM, Jocelyn Shaw
<redfernshawgmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I had to chuckle at the quote:
> > > >
> > > >  "'Paper is no longer the master
copy; the digital version is,' says
> > > > Brewster Kahle, the founder and director
of the Internet Archive, a
> > > > nonprofit digital library. 'Paper has
been dealt a complete deathblow.
> > > > When
> > > > was the last time you saw a telephone
book?'"...
> > > >
> > > > Having used the phone book twice in the
last 20 minutes to answer
> > > > reference
> > > > questions I found it quite humorous.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Jocelyn Shaw
> > > > Librarian
> > > > Hackley Public Library
> > > > 316 W Webster
> > > > Muskegon MI 49440
> > > >
> > > > The Smartest Card. Get it. Use it.
> > > >  the Hackley Public Library
> > > >
_______________________________________________
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Carol Bean
> > beanworksgmail.com
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Recently, a patron donated several archival boxes of
well-preserved
handwritten historic letters from area residents
(mid-to-late 19th century).

We are interested in pursuing a digitization effort in
house.

At present, I am interested in pluses and minuses of each of
the following:

1) Co-locate digitized images on our primary automation
(TLC
Library.Solution) server; as we are currently replacing this
machine. It
will be using Windows 2003 Enterprise, and currently 5 USER
CALs. If we go
this route, are more CALS recommended?

2) The industry best-practice of using a seperate storage
server for images.

Thank you,


James M. Gilbert
Systems Librarian
Whitehall Township Public Library
3700 Mechanicsville Road
Whitehall, PA 18052
610-432-4339

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