In-reply-to: Message of Tue, 17 Dec 1991 09:57:10 MST from <dpatterson@JANUS.MTROYAL.AB.CA>
Message-id: <"pJzZf1.0.v47.JLBCn"@sul2>
Sender: Rare Books and Special Collections Forum <EXLIBRIS@RUTVM1.BITNET>
A somewhat less than thoughtful and penetrating response to the Malkin
lecture:
I believe that I read somewhere in the past ten years that there are now
more horses in the U.S.A. than there were in the 19th century. They are,
mainly, valued for their beauty, the pleasure they give, and (of late)
their therapeutic value, rather than as engines.
There are still fields which cannot be cultivated by anything other than
a horse or a human being, depending on the weather. Ask the Mennonites
or some few farmers in Kansas or Vermont.
We just received our first archival floppy disks with an author's papers.
I quickly recopied them and salted the originals down in safety. We also
have a batch of MS records (library-produced) from the early 80s which
need recopying and then testing periodically to see how long they last.
Somehow I don't think they'll rival the mediaeval text manuscripts with
which they share stack space.
I also don't think it will be very soon that those same mediaeval text
manuscripts are turned in digital records.
We must plan and be prepared but we must not despair.
If I believed you (Terry) were totally correct in your predictions, I
might be gladder than I am that I am closer to the end than the beginning
of my life.
Alexandra Mason, Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas