Message-Id: <mailto:199505061416.JAA10472@library.wustl.edu> Date: Sat, 6 May 1995 07:18:33 -0700 From: Mike Betz <mailto:betz@WLN.COM> Subject: Re: Microfilm To: Multiple recipients of list IMAGELIB
As the former one and only conservator at the Washington State Archives, I doubt seriously if funds for reformatting would ever be used for item conservation. I also don't think that anyone has decided between the preservation/conservation treatment of an item or the reformatting of that item.My experience in processing a mountain of documents that needed treatment was that each document I handled received between $2 and $5 of time and materials, no matter how much I tried to reduce costs/improve output. Contrasts this to $.10 for filming and $.25 to image.
My point isn't that reformatting is superior to treatment, rather it is affordable relatively. I would prefer a world in which effective conservation/preservation of historical documents was a fact of life, but we are far from that. And, in my opinion, it will only get worse.
Mike Betz mailto:betz@wln.com
On Fri, 5 May 1995, Roderick Hook wrote:
> In the 'battle' over microfilmimg vs.digitizing, I have to wonder if the cost
> of all the necessary hardware and software is taking funds away from the most
> important part of this whole process - the preservation and/or conservation
> of the original material?
>
> Roderick Hook
> Photographic Archivist & Conservator
>