[WEB4LIB] Re: Standby for Reverse Paradigm Shift

[David Merchant]

>> >Well, then that may be a good thing.  That which is worth saving will be
>> >saved.  That which is not won't.  Van Gogh's paintings will continue to be
>> >saved and preserved.  Mine won't.  No great loss.
>>
>>Would that that be true.  How many Van Gogh's were sold during his
>>lifetime?  One?  Two?  He was so un-appreciated that had his works been
>>digital, they would not have been deemed worth saving until well after his
>>death, at which point they would've been lost.
>
>In that case we wouldn't know what we were missing. 

True, but that still doesn't, to me, negate the point that works worth
saving may not noticed as worth saving in time to save them; that it isn't
a good thing that much may not be preserved.  Even if we don't know what we
were missing, it's still not a good thing that much, including some
worthwhile stuff, may not be preserved.

>Also, VanGogh's works WERE preserved for a while, long enough for people to 

But the analogy was: if Van Gogh's works were digital only.  I was applying
the argument that much of the world's info is now digital only and may be
lost to a "what-if" to illustrate a point.  In reality, yes Van Gogh's
works were preserved long enough for people to realize their value, but
that proves my point: they weren't digital, they lasted longer than 20 - 30
years.  _IF_ his works were ONLY digital, and no one realized their worth
for whatever reasons, we could've easily lost every one of his works (or Di
Vinci, or...).  It took much much longer than 30 years for the worth of his
works to be realized.  In a digital world, that may be a death sentence.

>realize their value.  Thus they were preserved thereafter.  The same would 
>be true of digital works on CDROM or whatever.

I would hope so, but I personally am not sure of that.  A great piece of
work on a CD may very well not survive long enough for the "test of time"
to "prove" that it was a work of true art.  There's no rediscoveries, no
rethinking, because the originals, of which there was not many of because
the work went unnoticed, had all decayed/degraded.

>The idea that we can, or should, preserve anything and everything is 
>ridiculous.  Even archivists learn what to throw out.  Are mistakes 
>made?  I'm sure.  Such is life.  And such is the fodder for legends.

True, trying to preserving everything may be "ridiculous" but I think we
should try our best.  We will make mistakes, as you said, but while such is
life  so is reaching for imposible dreams: we may not make the dream, but
we will go further than if we didn't strive for the ideal, the impossible
dream.  Sometimes, just sometimes, we are shocked to find that those dreams
can come true, or we come closer to them than we ever thought was possible.
 Often, they don't, but sometimes... Just because we can't see how it can
be done, does not mean that it can't be done... (some see the world as it
is and ask why, others see the world as it could be and ask why not  ... to
badly paraphrase a famous quote!).  

TTFN,
David
Systems Librarian, Louisiana Tech University  <www.latech.edu/tech/library/>
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