Digitization of Humanities Resources
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 1996
Subject: Claude Pepper Collection: Digitization Proposal
From: Burt Altman
To H-SOUTH list members:
I am the archivist of the Claude Pepper Library at Florida State University. I am exploring the possibility of designing a project to make the papers of this 20th Century leader of the nation's elderly and sponsor of significant political and social legislation available on the Internet. This collection contains voluminous materials on the evolution of social security, retirement, foreign policy during and after World War II, U.S. labor relations, Florida history, and social issues relating to many groups in American society. They are of historical importance to U.S. and southern historians, political scientists, sociologists, and graduate students in the humanities and social sciences.
I need your input on the following:
If these materials are made available on the World Wide Web through a project of digitizing the original documents, would you make use of such a collection? It would include finding aids to the collection and a search engine to retrieve relevant documents. Many hours of research and travel costs could be saved by enabling users to access this archive from remote locations, and if a visit is planned, time could be saved by examining materials and finding aids before a trip to the facility.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Thank you for your help.
Sincerely,
Burt Altman, Archivist
Mildred and Claude Pepper Library
Florida State University Libraries
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996
From: Eric Thomas
Re: Claude Pepper Papers
I would welcome the availability of the Pepper Papers in digital format. As the teacher of a Florida History course, I can envision getting one or more students to take advantage of this resource. Best of luck with the project if you decide to undertake it.
Eric Thomas
History Department
Jacksonville University
Jacksonville, FL 32211
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996
From: John Andrew
Burt Altman asked:
> If these materials are made available on the World Wide Web through a > project of digitizing the original documents, would you make use of > such a collection? It would include finding aids to the collection > and a search engine to retrieve relevant documents. Many hours of research > and travel costs could be saved by enabling users to access > this archive from remote locations, and if a visit is planned, time > could be saved by examining materials and finding aids before a trip to > the facility.
Burt,
Absolutely! Not only would I use them, I would encourage my [undergraduate] seminar students to use them for their research papers - since we stress primary sources in those papers - it would be a real boon to the profession, and I certainly encourage you in your efforts - even the finding aids would be good, but the papers themselves would be great.
John Andrew email: J_ANDREW@ACAD.FANDM.EDU Department of History fax 717-399-4413 Franklin and Marshall College Lancaster, PA. 17604-3003
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996
From: Tom Kemp
Hi, saw your posting abt the Pepper materials and thought you would like to see the University of South Florida, Special Collections Department site.
Visit us at:
http://www.lib.usf.edu
Let us know what you think about it.
Tom Kemp, Head
Special Collections Department
University of South Florida Library
4202 East Fowler Avenue
Tampa, Florida 33620
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996
From: Daniel J. Linke
[X-POST FROM H-POL]
I feel I have a professional obligation to respond to this, even though the original query was posed to historians. As an archivist, I think digitizing any collection for browsing on the Web can be viewed as nothing but a complete waste of precious resources. In my profession the challenge is finding funds to process a growing backlog of primary material. To divert funds from making things available so a few big name collections can have a presence on the Web seems highly inappropriate. One collection that is "leading the way" on this matter is the John Heinz Collection. At a cost of $5 million they hope to scan the late Senator's entire paper trail and place it on the Web for "research." They embarked on the construction of this electronic temple with funds from the family, so I cannot quarrel with that, but I ask you, wouldn't it be better if they processed the papers normally, put the finding aid on the Web, then set up an endowment to pay the travel fees of anyone who wanted to use them? I assure you that could be done for less than a fifth of the cost. I do not know how the Pepper Collection will fund digitization, and I must say that I do not oppose putting some documents on the Web for display purposes, but given the great expense of scanning and digitization and a shrinking pool of funds at national, state, and local levels for historical work, more than a dozen Pepper documents would be a dubious production. Please note that I do not say this out of any partisan or political motivation. There is no collection in my repository that I would want to put on the Web either, given my processing backlog.
In addition, there are some serious questions that historians should mull before joining the Greek chorus for collection digitization. First, a practical issue: while it may sound convenient to be able to access collections from one's office via the Web, has anyone spent any length of time *reading* documents on the Web? To my eye, it is much more tiring than reading from paper. Second, and more importantly from my point of view, given the backlog of records in need of processing, would historians prefer to have Web access to less than one percent of all historical materials, or instead know that the archival profession is devoting time and money to making a greater effort in providing access to *all* records?
In a perfect world, we would have the funds to make everything available on the Web, but until that time comes, the scholarly community needs to be aware of the costs, upfront and hidden, that their brothers and sisters in the archival profession face with digitization issues.
Dan Linke
Assistant Archivist
Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library
Princeton University
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996
From: Earl Landau
Are you kidding? While my interest in your collection is limited (I would like to know about the eligibility of mental hospital patients for categorical Aid for the Aged under Social Security Act: this was the first important step in a process that led to release of aged persons from State mental institutions) I am certain that digitalized, internet-available archives would be a great boon.
Just returned from 800 mile trip to California State Archives, which had next to nothing on California mental health policy/programs in 1930s-1950s.
Internet-available searches would be marvelously wondrous. If, in addition, archival materials could be read, copied, through internet (in my rapidly waning lifetime), wouldn't we all rejoice!!
Sincerely,
Earl Landau
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
| ||||
