"Archiving" e-journals

[Barbara Stewart]

Back in the old days, and even up to the first half of the twentieth 
century, there were a finite number of books, magazines, and other printed 
materials to collect.  That is no longer the case.  With the explosion of 
information currently occurring in cyberspace, I believe that we should 
all sit ourselves down and give ourselves a serious talking to.  I might 
say to myself something like this:
   "You've got to face facts.  Much of what is out there on the Web, even 
the ejournals, lists, etc.  can only be described as ephemera.  They are 
NOT worth keeping for posterity.  We do not have the capability, nor the 
resources to preserve most of this for posterity, much less keeping 
archival records of say, the progression of a web site --how did it 
appear on its first day, its 100th day, its last day?  Perhaps what might 
be attempted is trying to keep and maintain the first few "new" things 
that come along...say, the first few sites that employed Java applets, or 
the first few sites to offer Realaudio soundbytes, or...well, you get the 
picture.  These "firsts" should be duly noted as they come along.  For 
example, all the sites that were observed on that "24 hours in 
cyberspace" site, or whatever its name was.  The other things?  We're 
just going to have to live without them.  For example, when manual 
typewriters were invented, did we try to keep everybody's first solemn 
attempts at pecking out a message? No! Trying to archive all of these 
ejournals, lists, etc. is much the same.  In times of famine, every bean 
is counted; in feast times we just say "there was plenty" and let it go 
at that"

But will I listen to myself?  THAT'S the question! ;-)

Happy Friday,


-- 
Barbara Stewart, Latin American  Cataloger
W.E.B. Du Bois Library, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003
(413)545-2728  Fax:(413)545-6494
stew at library.umass.edu
"Speaking for myself"