2008/9/24 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>:
2008/9/24 John at Darkstar <vacuum(a)jeb.no>no>:
In Norway a university has a large collection of
newspapers, the
collection is claimed to cover around 3000 running meters in the store
house - without the norwegian and nordic newspapers, whats left is
international newspapers from the last 150 years. If no one is coming up
with a solution the collection is going to be destructed (actually burned)
Traditionally, old newspapers in libraries would be converted to
microfiche, why aren't they doing that?
It is quite possible that they already have been, or that a similar
collection elsewhere has been done, at which point it becomes moot.
Alternately, it could be that they've said - well, thirty other
institutions have these, we never use them, they're a dead weight in
our collection so we need to dispose of them. (This is very convincing
- all libraries always need more space, and freeing up 3km of
shelving? It's a dream). If there are several other copies around,
then there is no pressing need for *this* to be the collection that
gets digitised - someone else, someone with funding, is probably
already planning it.
I note that no other institution is interested in taking this
collection. That, to me, would strongly suggest it isn't unique...
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk