Re: Old-Fashioned Definition of "Wrong" (was Mr. Smiley's lawyer)

[Eric Holzenberg <ejh@GROLIERCLUB.ORG>]

But even then, there is only so much information you can glean from a 
picture, digital or otherwise. Researchers will always need access to 
the original. Just to take a hypothetical case in connection with the 
Smiley affair: if an antiquarian map dealer -- or a librarian, or a 
collector, or another rare book librarian -- wants to authenticate a 
map, he will need to compare it to an undoubted original. Among the 
the things he will be comparing is size (scale can be difficult or 
impossible to judge in a digital surrogate), plate mark (a 
three-dimensional artifact of the engraving process often lost in a 
two-dimensional digital image), and the weight and sizing of the 
paper (try rubbing a jpeg between your fingers) -- and the list goes 
on. These are not frills, or inessentials; they are the stuff of 
scholarship, just as important as text, and often more so.

At 12:58 PM 9/19/2006, you wrote:
> I am not sure mass digitization is so impossible if
> the international library community is involved.
> Gates/Google et al want to do this as a commercial
> venture. We already have had list members give links
> to outstanding digital libraries that are accessible
> on-line. The Gutenberg project has word processed the
> texts of many books - some rare or scarce.
> A complete, central registry of digitized books is a
> first step. Patrons can be made to pay for the
> digitizing. When in the past I ordered microfilm from
> the British Library I paid one fee if the book had
> already been copied onto a master microfilm and a
> higher fee if it had not.
> The most  fragile items can be digitized using a
> digital camera, which I find much faster than
> scanning.
> The question is, are libraries willing to do this,
> even if they receive a royalty  each time an item they
> digitized is used? Every journey starts with a single
> step, and a single step by 100,000 libraries adds up
> to a considerable distance.
> C.J. Scheiner
>
>
> --- Edward Levin <edwardlevin@HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
> > Very few (if any) libraries have the financial
> > resources to scan or
> > microfiche all of their rare materials, if indeed
> > this could even be done
> > without risking damage to their more fragile
> > materials.
>
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Eric Holzenberg
Director
The Grolier Club
47 East 60th Street
New York, NY  10022
phone: 212/838-6690
fax: 212/838-2445
e-mail: ejh@grolierclub.org
website: <http://www.grolierclub.org/>www.grolierclub.org