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Misty, Water-Colored ImagesMark Y. Herring aa Library Services , Oklahoma Baptist University ,Shawnee , OK , 74801 , USAPublished online: 28 Sep 2012.

To cite this article: Mark Y. Herring (1997) Misty, Water-Colored Images, PublicLibrary Quarterly, 16:4, 23-29, DOI: 10.1300/J118v16n04_05

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Misty, Water-Colored Images

Mark YHerring

ABSTRACT. In this evanescent electronic age, all libraries, espe- cially public ones because they host so much of library clientele, need to bc concerned about preservation. New developments in pres- ervation, particularly digital imaging, provide not only new means, but exciting new ways of making the old new again to patrons. This piece, a version of it presented before the Oklahoma Library Association Preservation Section (Torn Clareson, Amigos, chair, 4 April 1995) reviews the findings, explains on-going preservation work at Oklahoma Baptist University, and sounds the clarion for preservation activist librarians. [Arlicle copies availnblefor afeeJiom The Haworih Documenr Delivery Setvice: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: ge~info@lraworth.co.ll

"In books lies the soul of the whole past time," wrote Carlyle, "the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and the material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream." What we face as librarians more and more each day is not only the body and the material substance vanishing like a dream, but the book itself. That is why new developments in preservation are, or rather should be, latched onto with increasing vigor and interest by our profession.

Perhaps nothing is more exciting in librarianship today than the advances being made in digital imaging, the electronic copying of scanned documents in image form. The process promises to com- bine the best features of both microform and photocopying.' Not only does it claim to provide clear readable blowbacks (or print-

Mark Y. Herring is Dean of Library Scrvices, Oklahoma Baptist University, Shawnee, OK 74801.

Public Library Quarterly, Vol. 16(4) 1997 O 1997 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reservcd. 23

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outs), but it also creates, via WORM capabilities (write once, read many), a powerfully useful indexing tool, something maddeningly unavailable with microform.

At Oklahoma Baptist University we are examining this technolo- gy carefully with respect to materials endemic to us. Presently, the costs are too formidable for us to undertake every aspect of a digitized project immediately. But we view the surrounding devel- opments from places like Yale, Cornell and LSU with great interest as any library should. Whether public, academic, or special, large or small, preservation of materials, especially in this evanescent elec- tronic age, should remain a high priority among librarians. Public libraries, because they service so many and so varied a constituen- cy, should be among preservation's library leaders2

Our collection of OBU memorabilia contains not onlv documents relating to the founding of the university and its alumni during the early part of this century, but we also share with the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma (BGCO) the work of a great many impa- vid Baptist reformers and church developers who performed their missions before the turn of the century when Oklahoma was still a territory. We are intrigued by the prospects of digitized materials, not only for the obvious preservation reasons, but also because, given the vicissitudes that is the Baptist denomination today, of the possibility of making these materials more widely available. Last month, the BGCO moved its part of the collection to Oklahoma City, some thiity miles from our campus. Digitization proffers the possibility of making materials in that collection, materials we can both share, not only with each other, but more importantly with our larger constituencies.

The collection is rich in materials relating to Baptist work throughout the midwest. To be able to capture all of these docu- ments, pictures, and other histories in a format that is not only available, but easily accessible, makes this sort of technology devel- opment truly sensational. We have examined other methods, and so far traditional methods have proved hardly more than mere caretak- ing. I do not dismiss them out of hand, but time is running out on the documents, and we are eager to do something about these valu- able, albeit sparse, materials that seem worthy of preservation to us.

The task is a formidable one. Funding for us is limited; one might

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Mark Y Herring 25

even say nearly non-existent. Securing funding for this sort of proj- ect, one that hardly has the glamour of a fully automated system or the proud showmanship of a state-of-the-art building, is next to impossible. But we are still interested in pursuing whatever exigu- ous funding may be available to us for this project because what we are trying to preserve is of great value to Oklahoma Baptist Univer- sity in specific, and Baptists the world over in general, not to men- tion for historians of whatever creed.

The project is divided into three parts: Collection Assessment; Microfilming and Indexing; and Digitization. Part One has been on-going for a number of years. Materials have been transferred into acid-free boxes and some more sophisticated forms of pres- ervation have been applied wherever needed. We were most fortu- nate when two non-traditional students who worked with the local preservation society returned to school and asked to work in our archives. For the past fourteen months we have had essentially near-professional help at a fraction of the cost.

Part TWO began unexpectedly and seredipitously. During budgets hearings this year, I made the off-hand comment about another project on-going in another part of the university. I recommended microfilming as a solution to a problem whose proposed solution would have cost more than three times as much, As a result of that off-the-cuff comment, purchase-approval was granted for an in- house microfilmer. This summer we purchased a microfilmer and began the arduous task making a microfilm archival record of these materials. Simultaneously we are also creating a sequential index for the filmed materials. Part Three will begin when we secure additional h d i n g to move into digital imaging of materials.

But why do we bother in the first place? Why not just let this sleeping dog lie as it has for more than half a century? Because preservation, whether real or in part, is ultimately what every librarian's work is all about. In one accurate sense of the word, ideology notwithstanding, all librarians are conservatives at heart, conserving either the whole of all past time, as Carlyle had it, or some bardy audible part of it. The library profession needs to pay not only more attention to the matter of digitizatian, but also play a far larger and more significant: role in its development than we heretofore have. I have attended state preservation meetings not

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only in Oklahoma but elsewherc, where the number of attending librarians could have been counted on two fingers. Do we not care about the availability of archival materials anymore? Have we be- come, in our white hot lust for all things automated, merely "tools of our tools," as Thoreau's fine phrase has it?

I realize, of course, that witnessing the development and fine- tuning digital imaging technology is much like being responsible for the mice in laboratory research. Like most nascent library technologies, the history of digitization will no doubt follow a per- version of Murphy's law as reported by Hofstadlet in his book Godel, Escher and Bach: it will always take longer, always cost more, always be harder to do, always be more than can be done, and always produce less than what you expect.3 But perhaps if we librarians take a more activist interest, initiate certain avenues of research, and not leave it entirely in the hands of technocrats, we may be able to bypass some of the less satisfying outcomes of technology from our point of view. As Waters has pointed out, "The place of electronic materials in the library of the future will depend on how well (or how poorly) they measure up against the mission of the library of the future to generate, preserve and im- prove access to recorded kn~wledge."~

Presently, we stand at a bihrcation of the road with respect to digitization. Will it be further refined and therefore made more valu- able to US, or die on the vine owing to our own lack of interest? The cost of digital imaging as compared to, say, microfilming, leaves much to be desired. According to Paul Conway, head of Yale Univer- sity's preservation unit, digital imaging technology is expensive to acquire and more expensive to ~on t inue .~ And the costs seem unend- ing. Without the further expense of indexing, these documents are virtually unintel~igible.~ When you compare these costs to micro- filming, where you are likely to find predictable, steady costs run- nhg about ten to fifteen cents a page, you quickly discover that even a small projecl such as ours at Oklahoma I3apt:st tfn;vers;ty, tnust be undertake; with c a ~ t i o n . ~ It would appear that digital imaging may cost two times the per page cost of microfilming, and perhaps as much as twenty times the storage cost of filming.8 So the issue comes readily to mind: Why bother? Let's leave it to the experts. Why not simply microfilm and be done with it? While I consider

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Ma~k I: Hewing 27

myself a firm adherent to Occam's Razor-never increase entities without necessity-I do find such thinking akin to tunnel vision.

While it is true that microfilming does last about 500 years and requires only minimal storage costs compared to the fairly short duration of digital imaging, microfilm remains vexatious to our users.9 Microfilm is basically a sequentially accessible preserver. Virtually no indexing to speak of exists. For most of our users it is cumbersome to use (an understatement if ever there was one), the blowbacks are of dubious quality, and each reproduction results in about a 10% loss in resolution quality.1° Digital imaging, on the - - other hand, produces almost original quality r$oductionsj has vast and souhisticated indexing. mav be accessible to numerous users s i r n u l t ~ n e ~ u s l ~ if mountei-on a LAN, and offers ready access. It does not seem prudent to me that with technology such as this waiting to be developed, and clearly offering far more ease of use to any patron who comes looking for archival materials, that librarians should sit idly by, content with what amounts to a format that merely provides sequential access and minimal, custodial care.

The reason librarians should be involved in digitization more intimately than we have been has to do with what we already know. We know from experience that we must be careful about how rapid- ly a technology matures. We know, for example, that digital readers available now will be obsolete in ten years or less. The disks used for digital imaging may last for fifty years, but the equipment to read the medium will fall into obsolescence much, much sooner.

If we are not careful, we could very well place ourselves where we have travelled once before. The first automated census in 1960, experts tell us, reveals less information than does its 100 year old predecessor. I I But given these tocsins, digitization appears a ready successor to microform. Again, Waters of Yale University: "Given these choices, I would submit that microfilm, which is durable as a means of preserving but hard to use, is not the obvious choice as a pr'eservation technology when compared to digital imagery, which must be regularly renewed but which promises to be relatively easy to use and therefore an effective means of preserving a c c e s ~ . " ' ~

Digital imagery will not be an easy technology to keel-haul, how- ever. It will require tjme, effort and quality control, the likes of which we are not used to seeing in most library technologiesil3 Given the experience of LSU, one would think that it would be out of reach for

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most libraries. But if I'm not mistaken, it seems to me that not so long ago in this profession a man by the name of Kilgour had an idea about a bibliographic network. Many naysayers then predicted what some are saying now about digitization: it will never work; it has far too many risky variables; and, it will only be possible for the very large libraries, and of those, only the most amply funded.

Processes are underway even now to make digital imaging more accessible. The Kodak Photo CD, while not an exact match for digitiza- tion, but certainly one that provides photographic preservation, has al- ready reduced costs.14 And it is just this h d of advance that should enliven us to encourage and even participate in hrther developments.

Ultimately, we librarians are most dependent upon the informa- tion technology industry to address the most sophisticated technolo- gy questions. But we must be about helping technocrats to forrnu- late library-related questions in a manner that will answer our greatest needs. While digital technology has not yet settled down, it does hold great promise, not only for us, but more importantly, for those whom we serve. Waters is right when he writes, "The solu- tions and wholesale adoption of a new and potentially revolutioniz- ing technology is difficult to defend and harder to justify."ls But it seems to me that this is precisely more what we should be about as a profession, and less about saving whales, prohibiting the wearing of fur, and myriad other social and political concerns that seem to dominate our national professional organization to the point of dis- traction.

It may be that a new Carlyle will one day write, "In ions or digital images lies the soul of the whole past time, when books and other paper materials have altogether vanished like a dream." I hope not because it will mean the end of an era, not to mention how utterly prosaic it sounds compared to the original. But should it have to happen, I hope you and I and those who come after us will have done our part to preserve the great history of ideas to, as Chesterton so aptly put it, "aid the Divine giR of language and letter to outlive us all."

NOTES

I . Kennedy, Anne R. (October 1993). "Digital-to-Microfilm Conversion: An interim Preservation Solution." Libraly Resorr~res o~ id Technical Services 37(4), pp. 390-40 I .

2. See, for example, Paul Eden el ul. "Of Special Conccm? Preservation Pcr-

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spcctive: A Survey of 173 British Public Libraries. Public Librnvy Journal 9 (MarchIApril 1994), pp 33-4.

3. For a similar facon deparle, see Waters, Donald, "Electronic Technologies and Preservation." June 25,1992. Research Libraries Group Annual Meeting pre- sentation.

4. Ibid., p. 5. 5. Conway, Paul. (Fcbruary 1, 1994). "Digitizing Preservation." Library

Journal /19(2), pp. 42-45. 6. Ibid., p. 43. 7. Waters, Donald. (June 1991). "From Microfilm to Digital Imagery." Yale

University: Ncw Haven, CT. pp. 1-45. 8. Willis, Don. (November 1992). "A Hybrid Systems Approach to Preserva-

tion of Printed Materials." Commission on Preservation and Access, Washington: DC. 71 p.

9. Watcrs, D. (June 1991), p. 11. 10. Willis. p. 12. l I . Willis, p. 15. 12. Watcrs (Junc 25, 1992), p. 7. 13. Phillips, Faye and Richard Condry. (Winter 1994). "Louisiana State Uni-

versity Library: Electronic Imaging Libraries." Microfilm Review 23(1). 14. See Beiser, Karl (November 1993). "Imaging Technology in Libraries:

Photo CD Offers New Possibilities." Online l7(6), pp. 16-18,20,22-24.26-29. 15. Waters, p. 8.

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