Wednesday, April 03, 2002
Conserve or preserve?
Novelist turns paper tiger: a review of Nicholson Baker's new book, Double Fold, which looks at the push to scan old books into microfilm or computer media in order to preserve the contents and save space.
The nub of this story lies in the distinction librarians make between conservation and preservation. Conservation means keeping a physical artefact in usable condition. Preservation, on the other hand, means preserving the content in readable form. A book that has been scanned into a computer file and then destroyed has not been conserved, but it has been preserved.
[via Reductio Ad Absurdum]
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