A Whale to Remember

This story arrived via Roger Smith’s Global Museum, a terrific weekly compendium of newspaper articles about museums worldwide.  I hope the link to the Daily Mail stays usable because it’s worth reading the article for the interesting selection of museums and the magnificent photos that accompany it. 

Ms. Gordon’s suggestion that museums allow us to do the impossible – travel back in time in places far, far away – got me to read the piece because, for me, that’s the real appeal of  natural history museums, not big screen theaters or flashy multi-media labels and guides.  

The world’s top ten museums
By Sarah Gordon
Last updated at 12:55 PM on 14th July 2009
Museums are the closest we will ever get to time travel. Only within the hallowed walls of a museum can we trace the history of a civilisation and have an idea of how it worked.
Every town and city throughout the world seems to document its past in some way or other, but several museums have become so famous that they are destinations in themselves attracting millions of visitors who flock from across the world to view their exhibits.
After much discussion, TravelMail has selected our ultimate list of world-class museums that everyone should visit in their lifetime…
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1197889/The-museums-the-world-best-rest-.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0LqRerY9x 

My favorite is the photo of the 94-foot-long blue whale model suspended in the Hall of Ocean Life at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.  I’m not sure if this is the same whale I recall from visits as a child back in the 1950′s and 60′s.  I think not — I’ve a vague memory that AMNH commissioned a new whale when the  exhibit hall was refurbished more recently. A slightly firmer memory – from one of my more recent visits  is that MY WHALE  is suspended from the ceiling of a restaurant at the museum, delighting visitors of all ages. 

No visit to my grandparent’s home in Highbridge in the Bronx was complete without a subway ride downtown and a visit to AMNH.  Naturally, we could not leave the museum without stopping in the old Hall of Ocean Life and a wave and a kiss blown to the gallery’s cavernous upper reaches for the whale.  Now I realize the whale is the creation of skilled artists and designers guided by the knowledge and special insights of scientists.  I don’t remember whether I understood this in 1957 or not but there’s still something about that whale that throws an enchantment over its space.

Newsprint and lamination

There were several good messages about Vinegar Syndrome and sources for additional information have been posted on Museum-L in response to a query about scanning laminated newspaper clippings in late June.

I agree that scanning is a good option to preserve the intellectual content of the clippings and to prevent further deterioration due to handling and light exposure. If this were may project, I would want to do test scans to determine if the laminate interferes with the quality of scanned images. If it is a problem, remove as much of the laminate as possible before proceeding should help. If removal is difficult, consulting a paper conservator is the next step. Adhesives don’t always stay put and it’s possible that the newsprint has transferred to the inside surface of laminate. All of this depends to a significant degree on what the storage conditions have been like – heat and humidity increase the likelihood of transfer as well as the deterioration of the paper and plastic that are already causing problems.

If scanning isn’t possible at present, a low cost and low tech alternative is photocopying the newspaper clippings. They may photocopy better through the laminate than they will scan. Modern photocopy paper is generally acid free, if not slightly buffered, and the toner is nonreactive. A photocopy has a good chance of lasting longer than the scans and has the advantage of being readable with the naked eye.

The question was posed because the Museum-L’er needs to make a case for scanning to the powers-that-be. This suggests a couple of possible internal problems — too many higher priorty jobs in the queue or lack of experience or staff or equipment to scan. Realistically, if an organization is already scanning vital documents, collections data, original photos and dealing with born-digital material, I’d expect them to be pre-disposed to this project so the problem is building a case to get into the queue.

Any or all of the following points should be incorporated in the proposal to scan — the increasing rate of deterioration, the high demand to use the clippings and
the importance of the documents to other collections within the institution.

For an organization just heading into the brave new world of digitization, though, I’m not certain a newspaper clipping file, no matter how deteriorated is going to have the same priority as original documents, photos, organizational records and other unique materials. Chances are, somebody holds copyright to the newspaper clippings so your scans could only be made available to users on site. While clipping files provide contextual data, most major newspapers and many smaller ones have been microfilmed courtesy of the Library of Congress and various State newspaper projects.

In any case, before embarking on the project, make certain the IT staff can backup, periodically refresh and migrate these images to new server platforms and operating systems. Otherwise the project could have a short useful lifespan which negates the effort this project requires.

Shortly after reading Nicholson Baker on the tragedy of microfilming projects of the post-WW2 era, I experienced a similar problem myself when trying to find a turn of the century ad in a medical journal. Most library binders followed routine library instructions and eliminated those ad sections that appeared in the back of scholarly journals to reduce the amount of space a stored journal would require. When these journals were microfilmed, or more recently scanned, to preserve the intellectual content, the ads were long gone. Luckily, I found a copy with ads in the fourth library I checked and was able to arrange to borrow it long enough for our photographer to photograph the ad in question which was then blown up and used to illustrate how survivors of a 19th century epidemic were housed in tents manufactured locally. It was a great local addition to a national travelling exhibit and very nearly did not happen because back in the day saving space and reducing binding costs trumped the perceived value of the ads.

What Are They Gonna Do to Publib?

Well, I’ve waited 30 hours for this message to show up on publib but it’s not there yet, even though a batch of July 2 messages have arrived. Guess it’s stuck in the great spam filter in the sky so I figured I’d put it on this blog.

The combination of messages about how to support publib on a server that can handle 9000+ subscriber, with adequate space for the large archives, and less downtime and messages that never go out prompted an lot of discussion about options. Hopefully the discussion will continue in person during ALA. Since I won’t be there, I thought I’d share my thoughts via this blog.

When I saw messages Re: Customer Service Survey, coming on the heels of the “what to do about publib” discussion, it struck me that a survey of publib subscribers would be in order. Karen, Robert and others who send messages regularly have explained the issues and (some of) the options, perhaps more will emerge in the face-to-face gathering in Chi-town.

Could Web Junction help with a survey? Or perhaps a yahoo group could be set up specifically to get a poll? Trying to gauge the reactions of 9000+ subscribers from a handful of messages that regular responders have sent out going to be misleading at best.

Personally, I don’t think the NPR/PBS model works. Side by side with the appeals to members, corporate sponsorship has been morphing into something closer to advertiser support for years. Put it all together, locally and nationally — a mind-boggling effort goes into raising funds for public radio and tv. If those fund raising costs could only be funneled into programming, just think what we could see and hear.

Back to publib — periodically we get into disagreements about what’s posted here; add to that potential conflicts among different tiers of subscribers and paid moderators will be necessary, imo.

To be brutally honest, I for one could not/would not pay for a subscription. There’s perhaps one in the 10-12 listservs that I follow that I’d be willing to scrape money together for (living on a fixed income about a decade sooner than I’d planned to retire does not accomodate frills.)