There are benefits and drawbacks to using original materials and to using electronic (or microform) reproductions. Here are three sets of resources to use in considering this matter.
Statements on Original Materials
"Statement on the Significance of Primary Records." Modern Language Association
"LES Statement on Primary Materials." Literatures in English Section of the Association of College & Research Libraries, American Library Association.
If someone locates a similar statement from historians, please let me know and I'll add the link.--KJ
Questions to Ask Yourself
Jeanetta Drueke, Professor of Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, came up with this set of questions.
What might a scholar gain from one over the other?
Why preserve the print copy once it's been digitized? After all, once newspapers are digitized, the microfilm or print is often discarded.
What about the print and online as artifacts? What's the difference?
How did the text come to be published in the first place? What did publication mean then? What was the process? How many copies were produced? Who was the audience? Who is the audience now?
How has the text been disseminated since publication? What other formats have produced over the years?
What is the effect of choosing one particular copy to digitize? How is the copy chosen? Is anything lost?
Who decides what texts get digitized? What are the criteria?
Is it digitized from the microfilm or the print? How is that choice made? What difference does it make? What is the cost to digitize? To acquire digitized copies?
Who owns the rights to digitized text?
What happens when the next technology comes along?
What happens in budget cuts? What happens if the producer goes out of business? Is it archived? Do we have access?
Quotations
Here's an email exchange with Katherine L. Walter, Chair of University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries' Digital Initiatives and Special Collections.
KJ:
I'm teaching a class ... and I'm mulling over the matter of using the print copies of older works, such as are found in Special Collections, versus using the EEBO or ECCO electronic versions, which are readily available online.
My question to you: What benefits do you see to using the print originals in Special Collections rather than relying on the electronic versions?
KW:
I think it depends upon the purpose of your ... session. There is nothing wrong with digital surrogates or online sites for providing access. That said, if the originals have information that is lacking in the online versions, such as marginalia important to the class project or association value, or if you are conducting a history of the book lecture or teaching how to do primary source research, then I would say use originals if available. If you are simply teaching the students about how to do general historical research for the purposes of writing a paper, the originals are not necessary. Source: personal email, March 16, 2011.
I also asked Professor Mary Ellen Ducey, University Archivist, about this and she sent me the following quotation.
"We discovered that in nearly every case, the physical book provided clues to the history of the text that the digital version lacked. More than that, handling the original texts created an immediate and visceral link to the past-to the authors, the authors' readers, even to the coffee houses where the books in their day were being discussed.
"The electronic versions were, by contrast, decontextualized flickers of light. One book, for example, had annotations by a contemporary reader; another was specially bound denoting its status as a revered cultural artifact; still another surprised us by its sheer bulk, something that was not apparent when seen electronically. On screen, a pamphlet looks pretty much the same as a heavy tome and connotes the same permanence. In your hands its ephemeral qualities become apparent and the stains and wear suggest a particular style of reading. The books spoke to us, begging questions that we had not thought to ask from looking at electronic facsimiles."
By JAY SATTERFIELD
Rauner Special Collections Librarian
Vox Home > '05-'06 Academic Year > September 26, 2005 Issue >
The value of rare books in a digital age
https://www.dartmouth.edu/~vox/0506/0926/books.html
Accessed: 2011-03-15
Page updated September 2016.
