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Re: Public vandalism
On Mon, 7 Dec 2009, D Finnigan wrote:
I took a look at the bound Byte volumes just a few moments ago to see what
the tables of contents look like. Most are just one page, with a few
two-pagers. So my idea to use take a good photo of each should turn out
well.
On to the subject of this post....
I selected a few notable Byte magazines to read over the introduction of the
//e, Lisa, Macintosh, Power PC Macs, etc.
I went to the volume which held the October 1986 issue of Byte which
features the IIgs introduction article. I scanned the ToC and saw that the
IIgs intro article was on page 84. Ok. I flipped around and ended up at a
block of ads. The next page was 104, the start of some other article. I
flipped back past the ads... back to an article on page 70-something. I
checked the ToC again... flipped back past the pages more carefully.
A sinking feeling arose.
I examined the binding carefully and I found that the smallest stubs of the
pages were still clinging to the binding. Someone had torn out the entire
Apple IIgs article from this Byte magazine. This was probably done years ago
by some Apple fanatic, but impresses upon us all the fact that even
libraries can suffer "data loss."
The quicker we get these old volumes digitized such that they can be
perfectly replicated as many times as needed, the better.
Just because the Apple IIGS article is missing doesn't mean it's a
horrible event. For most libraries, they tossed the magazines (Byte and
everything else) a long time ago. Unless they were bound, chances are
good they wouldn't have been in great shape anyway, magazines don't hold
up that well to a lot of reading by different people. Libraries have a
finite space, and lots gets tossed because room is needed for things that
more people will take advantage of. Sad as it may be, libraries aren't so
much about archiving but about lending, and if something is old, it's
likely going to get tossed.
In other words, you're actually lucky that those Byte volumes are still
in the library.
The article may have been taken before the binding, assuming the library
had them bound after the fact.
As for pilfering, read "The Island of Lost Maps", your library may have
a copy, about the stealing of specific things from vintage books, like
maps and artwork that is then sold off to the customer. There was an
episode of "Law & Order" (I think it was the main show) in the past few
years that had such pilfering as part of the plot.
Michael