In our digital age there are those
who no longer value paper. I was told I should garbage the copies of
our Cupar Herald, because they were on micro film at the Saskatchewan
Archives, and the paper itself was disintegrating. The early copies
are over one hundred years old. Even under climate control conditions
their time is limited. Certainly I am happy they are preserved on
microfilm but is that the end?
The other day a couple from British
Columbia came to our museum searching for family information. They
had visited our cemetery and found a headstone. We brought out a
handwritten Masonic registration book and found their relative. Then
I pulled down a 1914 copy of our paper and found their ancestors: the
exact date of the marriage, the church and minister. I pulled down a
1923 paper and found the report of the tragic death of their
ancestors young son. The couple ran their hand across the page and
moved a hundred years back, reading for the first time as did the
family about the tragedy.
There is not only a tactial quality
to this gesture but a kind of warm sensation to know you are looking
at the original within the context of the entire newspaper on that exact date.
Certainly the couple could have eventually found the information on a
vital statistics website, the dry facts only, but is that enough?
1 comment:
This is a thought-provoking post! It's great to hear that you've got the space and resources to keep them. As you've pointed out, newsprint was never intended to last, and there's only so much you can do to slow its deterioration.
For many museums with scarce resources for conservation, it can be a better use of time and money to focus on preserving objects that will last. That's why it's so great that organizations like the provincial archives and Sask History Online are doing so much great work digitizing our documentary heritage and making it accessible.
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