It's certainly true that many archives are now (willingly or not)
receiving harddrives and many other types of electronic materials. I
know that the Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas at Austin has
received some electronic materials; the Center for American History,
also at UT, has started an interesting videogame archive see
(http://www.cah.utexas.edu/projects/videogamearchive/).

Pat Galloway at the UT Austin School of Information has many students
working on projects in the area of digital preservation, which is, as
you can imagine, quite challenging. There are some types of materials
that you can't just print!


-- 
Danielle Cunniff Plumer, Coordinator
Texas Heritage Digitization Initiative
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
512.463.5852 (phone) / 512.936.2306 (fax)
[log in to unmask]


On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 11:23 AM, Richard Fields <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On boingboing.net, I saw that Douglad Adams typewriter is for sale. This is
> an autographed typewriter that he wrote "The Hitchhikiers Guide to Galaxy "
> on. I(It can be yours for a cool $25,000!) As interesting as that is, a
> throw away line in the article caught my eye. "An archivist friend of mine
> tells me that libraries that once collected authors' papers are now storing
> their hard-drives." I had not heard this. I used to oversee an archival
> collection, and we had not moved in that direction. I can foreesee many
> problems with it (equipment compatibility, data integrity, space, etc.) It
> did cause me to wonder how museums and archives are handling this, since so
> few type anymore. I have seen nice exhibits of an author's desk with a
> typewriter, papers, and assorted items on display, but has the change in
> technology changed what we desire? Are museums looking to get the author's
> macbook and favorite coffee cup for a future exhibit? So many questions from
> a throwaway line! I would love to hear comments on the issue if you have the
> time. Oh, here is the link to the article
>
>   http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/07/16/buy-the-typewriter-o.html

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