Sender: Rare Books and Special Collections Forum <EXLIBRIS@RUTVM1.BITNET>
Dear Terry,
I have read the lecture with considerable interest. Other than that, as
a bibliographer I find it depressing, I do think, that your prognostications
should, like the man who predicted that by 1950 the streets of New York would be
several stories deep in horse manure, take some changes in fashion and
technology into account.
First, I suspect, that as soon as you take away paper books, that there
will be a passion, as in period of Wm Morris and the Craft Movement, a yearing
for a return to fine printing and binding. Hence there will be new material to
be entered in the rare book libraries in print form as well as in micro-forms
and electronic cast-off media, such as punched cards. I also suspect that the
technology (for which I LONG!) of analysing paper and leather, etc. will finally
become small enough and practical enough to be assembled near rare book
collections so that more information can be gathered from the physical objects.
So while I, for one, would hope that there might be an intelligent amalgamation
of collections of rare books, I do not think that they will fade from
consciousness any more than the DNA molecules, or the bones of dinosaurs.
Frankly I look forward to this period where I can travel to a few
places, like the British Library to do good, technical work, rather than to
visit (with apologies) the Alderman, Columbia, and the Linderman, and then take
my data home, hoping to be able to see connections.
A more hopeful soul than yourself,
Diana Patterson
Mt Royal College
Calgary, Alberta
DPATTERSON@JANUS.MtRoyal.AB.CA