[Genealib] I think you'll all find this as sounding familiar.

[Curt Witcher]

What a great post!  I actually remember reading that very article many,
many moons ago reprinted in some minor publication.  And I used it a
couple of times over the years to give perspective to administrators who
believed "the end is near!"

:-)

Curt
===-===

Curt B. Witcher, MLS, FUGA, IGSF
Manager, Genealogy Center
NE Director, Indiana Genealogical Society
Allen County Public Library
P. O. Box 2270, 900 Library Plaza
Fort Wayne, IN  46801-2270
CWitcher at ACPL.Lib.in.us
260-421-1226
Fax: 260-421-1386
===========================================
The views, opinions, and judgments expressed
in this message are solely those of the author.
The message contents have not been reviewed
or approved by the Allen County Public Library.
===========================================


>>> egrundset at dar.org 12/5/2008 11:19 AM >>>
Everyone,

 

Yesterday, while cleaning out some old files in my office, I
discovered
a copy of a magazine called The Library Scene from 1979. It was in a
file created by people who worked here before I came here in 1983. The
magazine was opened to an article by Stephen R. Salmon, then of the
University of California. The article's title is: "User Resistance to
Microforms in the Research Library." It was originally published in
Microform Review, v. 3:3 (July 1974), 194-199. Again, this was
actually
from 1974. I thought you would all be interested in reading this, but
since I'm not going to enter the entire article, the first paragraph
will suffice. This speaks to the still often-heard current comment
that
digital will soon replace all books and that books are obsolete. The
dates in brackets are my additions.

 

So, from nearly 35 years ago....

 

"The End of the Book" 

"The millennium has already arrived," announced one observer ten years
ago [1964], as he predicted "the eventual abandonment of the physical
book."  "Where will the books go?" asked another writer. "Already we
are
in the early stages of the microbook revolution." This was also ten
years ago [1964], and as such predictions go, relatively recent. For
forty years [1934], we've been getting prophecies that books are on
the
way out and microforms on the way in, and they're still coming; just
last week I received a brochure informing me that "microfilm
represents
the key to fulfilling, today and in the future, the need for storage
and
retrieval of vast amounts of original information: and "that just for
today! For tomorrow we can look forward to microfilm readers in most
households, as well as millions of portable, personal-use microfilm
readers. The increasingly popularity of publishing on microfilm which
we
see today is certain to accelerate the replacement of conventional
media
with microfilm. "The day is not far off," we're told, when microfilm
will make knowledge "inexpensive, easy, and accessible to all," and
we're advised to hurry and get libraries ready for "tomorrow's needs"
-
whatever that means." 

 

The article goes on for several more pages (pages 24-29 in all) and
includes comments about problems with equipment, readers' inability to
use the equipment, and bibliographic control. It is indeed an
interesting thing to look at in light of all of the current talk that
digital will soon replace all books and that books are nearly
obsolete.
The language sounds so familiar. History repeats itself. 

 

I will add that we are nearly finished with a digitizing project that
has lasted 7-8 years, cost nearly $10,000,000, and involves our own
unique materials, so I'm not putting down digitalization. This was
just
a chance encounter with ideas from the 1970s that don't seem to have
diminished in the first decade of the 21st century.

 

I hope some of you can track down the entire article to read.

 

Eric

 

Eric G. Grundset 
Library Director

DAR Library

National Society Daughters of the American Revolution

1776 D Street, N. W.

Washington, DC 20006-5303

egrundset at dar.org 

202-879-3313