Date   : Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:41:39 +0100
From   : darren.grant@... (Darren Grant)
Subject: The Micro User

On 24/06/2008 15:29, "Jules Richardson" <jules.richardson99@...>
wrote:
> 
> That's another reason for my leaving things as scans for the time being - I
> can never decide how important preserving the original 'feel' of the item
> being scanned is (vs. just preserving the information within it).
> 
> At what point do things like this stop - how important is it to capture the
> fact that someone was using coloured backgrounds in an article, for instance
> (requiring a colour rather than greyscale scan and consequently increase in
> storage)?
> 
> Part of me wants to preserve the item in its original form as much as possible
> - but another part just wants the raw data stored as efficiently as
> possible...
> 
> cheers
> 
> Jules

To be fair I think some people are taking it all a bit to seriously.

There are two reasons to preserve documents. The first is to preserve the
original document in the original format for the purpose of historic
preservation. The second is to preserve the information.

There are plenty of real magazines out there and people who want to see the
original material should collect the actual magazines and keep them stored
in good conditions to keep them. I have many motoring magazines from the
30's and I keep them as it is nice to look back over them in their original
form.

However the more important for most people is the information contained in
them. The majority of people are looking to read old articles that helps
them further understand the technology and the environment they were used
in. I know that with the motor magazines I would be more than happy just to
have the text and pictures for the background information. I'm not that
interested in seeing a scan of the magazine I'd rather have searchable
readable text. If I want the magazine I'll hunt one down and but the real
thing.