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Role of the Artifact Continued

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p.20 "Surrogates are created for one of two reasons: to create copies of works too fragile to use or to replace items in imminent danger of disintinegration."

Actually this is only one reason since there is no difference between the two conditions mentioned. That would leave us to provide a real second reason.

Well, surrogates are created as particular interactions with the original and these interactions vary with reader, period, culture context and technological assistance. And these interactions certainly continue over time. THE REPORT NEEDS TO GET OVER THE SUPERFICIAL VIEW THAT COPIES ARE PRODUCED TO SUPPLANT THE ROLE OF THE ORIGINAL. IN FACT COPIES ARE PRODUCED TO INCREASE THE MEANING OF ORIGINALS.

If there is even a germ of truth or iota of logic in the above premise, we can ask another fundamaental question. Is this Report a reflection of the will and understanding of the scholarly community? Or is it a stage set for another agenda? Let's turn the page and read further

p.19...well only five notes here. By far the most interesting follows the the sentence on selection: "(Books are not shelved by age, after all.)" I find this one of the most excellent and suggestive remarks in the whole Report. This is because shelving itself defies time. This is particularly true in many classifation schemes. Books separated by centuries are not separated at all. What does this mere factoid really tell us. I would offer that it suggests the interaction between original and copy is a phenomenon that is timeless and as such immune at some level from our own mortality and from the mortality of our works.

I will give you a good example. I was talking with our Chinese bibliographer today. He had given me a book that was extremely fragile and fragmented to mend. I suggested a shelf replacement photocopy and withdrawal of the original to our Leaf Master stacks. In my left hand hand I held the original and in my right a sample of a bound replacement copy.

As we proceeded with the discussion (he OKed the option) I slowly began to spread my arms and the original and copy apart in space. In a stroke of initiative, perhaps encouraged by the cross cultural opportunity, I asked him to look at the space I had made made between the two exemplars.

I blurted; "The transmission of knowledge is actually the interaction in the space between original and copy and it goes on forever." The biggest smile grew on his face. The smile also squinted his eyes closed. "Right." he said.

p.19 In another description of categories of 19th century books deserving preservation there is mention of "aesthetically significant bindings" Actually the usual bindings of the 19th century, particularly the first half, are more likely to be technically interesting than aesthetically interesting. At least "technically" should be added.

P.18 "The lively field of printing history..." should be changed to field of "book studies". And in text above the increasing preponderance of paperbacks is not evident in the circulating repair stream in contrast to failures of the ever more abbrieviated case construction edition binding. Finally at the head of the page; "Librarians have noted a disturbing trend during routine checking of new acquisitions...."(an increasing use of acidic stock). Just the opposite. Item screening for alkalization of 3rd world imprints now conventionally eliminates a quarter or third that are printed on alkaline paper. We are definitely racing toward the sunset of acid paper used for book publication.

p.17 "Unlike reformatting on film or digital files, saving one book in its original form does not increase access to it." This sentence should read; "Unlike reformatting on film or digital files, saving one book in its original form does not diminish access to it." The first reason for this minor change is that the original book will be accessible for a longer time. The second reason is that the original book is directly assessible with out any additional, technical mediation that may well not be available. The third reason is that the original book reformatted to film or digital, is simply unaccessible in its original reading mode.

p.16 (footnote) "A relatively new technology...." change to relatively old (long used in paper testing and document restoration) And the process is being developed in Germany should read the process is being automated in Germany. In the text; carefully assessing item by item....would be better; carefully screening individual items (magnitude of 300-400) And "facilities" for alkalization would be better not pluralized.

The sentence that seems distorted is "The conditions that slow the decay of library materials would be uninhabitable for most people." First this implies that the ideal conditions would be either way too hot or way too cold. And it makes no consideration of the energy conservation regimes that infact mandate building conditions before considerations of habitability.

p.15 "In thin, hard-finish paper, the page becomes brittle and brown along the edges and can easily snap off along a fold line." The wished for impression may be that the page will snap off along the gutter fold. If not, the sentence should read will snap off at a single Double Fold. The sentence "Once books have become embrittled, they are more or less doomed." Can be better revised as; "Once books have become embrittled they are more or less doomed to non-circulating status."

p.14 One line in the Report does relate to an interaction of original and copy (but the next line can be deleted). "Books also deteriorate as a result of mechanical strain, such as when they are slapped down on a copy machine and the spine is stressed. (Photocopying also exposes the paper to heat and light.)" I am not sure if the words strain and stress are correctly used. It would also be better to use an expression such as "flipped over on to" rather than "slapped down on". The subtle difference here is that one phrase describes an up-side down capture method while the other suggests an obsolete format.

Also on p.14 I cannot make heads or tails of the first paragraph distinguishing text, content and recorded instance. I think the problem may be confusion of presented contrasted with read information. Information, text, content, and recorded instance can both be presented and then read in different modes. (i.e. oral, written, print, composite, [I got these from Walter Ong and define them elsewhere])

p.13 the helper concept of reading modes is missing here too. I could have been slipped in at "Those who work within the print regime..." where regime could have been replaced with print reading mode. That would also help in the another p.13 threshold on "destabilization" of text. The factoid here is that traditional reading modes have not been destabilized but combined via technlogical means into a single composite interface. (ie. the on-line reading mode)

p.12 "The issue is not to evaluate the artifact per se to determine what survives and what does not. The scholarly community has no more of a claim to the wisdom of the ages than does the library community. The issue is the need to agree on a methods for interrogating the individual artifact that would, in a climate of finite resources, help make a good decision about whether and how to preserve it. Such a system (method) would help to ensure survival of the greatest number of artifacts by intelligent analysis and classifications."

"...many of the collaborations between scholars and librarians have been either locally based or designed to address only specific crises. None of the initiatives has proved to be sustainable, and none has developed mechanisms (methods/systems) for long-term productive partnerships. One of the goals of this task force is to propose mechnanisms for a collaboration that are realisitic and sustainable and that balance the needs of present users with those of the future."

This search has no short cuts. The "artificial aging" approach that simulates some consequence to preserved artifacts may work no better in processing meaning than it does in projecting physical longevity. The crucial features of the methodology are "realistic and sustainable". If the obvious, deliberate method of using real time, rather than human intervention, as the selector cannot be applied, there is a less apparent step that follows the same premise.

Scholarly attention and analysis can be directed to case histories of real time selection. To take a dramatic example, the Gnostic gospels of the fourth century recovered to scholarship in the twentieth century, were the identical artifacts with two distinctly different readings separated by 16 centuries. Much may be learned by a small amount of attention to the preservation incentives and technologies at work in this particular case history. Even more, in context of the incentives of the present Report, could be learned by alternative scenarios of selection applied to the Nag Hammadi codices as well as by estimation of the layers of additional meaning produced by this amazing instance of passive time selection.

p.11 "First, within the timeframe of the last 200 years, what consititutes an artifact worth retaining."

At this point the question has a haunting quality. We have dragged the precept of the interactivity of original and copy too far...through all the preceding pages. Now the time is approaching that we look at the contending precepts of insular resources and resources that are defined by interaction.

Artifacts most worth saving are those that engender the liveliest interaction between original and copy. No, that's not it. The log of the ship that Herman Melville sailed in is worth saving and its meaning cannot be copied. Artifacts worth saving are those that engender wide varieties of meaning. No, that's just not very gripping. Artifacts most worth saving are those whose meaning is defined by the interactivities of copying. That's getting closer. Note how the premise applies as well to the ship's log and the Book of Kells or Nixon Oval Office tapes.

A p.11 iota; "Redundant collections serve as insurance policies for preserving and making accessible information in a physical format. However, this is not true for digital information...." Later in the Report mention of the LOCKSS project that indicates that wide distribution works with all information. The Report is somewhat too attached to the old saw of Discontinuities between analog and digital preservation. Information is information and media are media. The difference is in the reading modes.

p.10 here is another too arbitrary a stance. "From the standpoint of useage, people normally analyze discrete sets of information contained within an artifact. The fact that artifacts are complex and they lend themselves to a variety of intellectual endeavors means that one must think of them in terms of their parts, and not just as a whole."

Well, what if the interactivity inherent in artifacts is also a product of the interactivity of its readers? I will give you an example. Let's say that we needed to establish the correct collation of a 14th century Psalter that has been badly misordered. This can best be done in tandum with one reader focused on the physical evidence and another reader focused on the narrative. The interactivities of the two readers simultaneously engages various levels of artifactual information....incrementally confirming and correcting the order through the book. a real example

p.9 "The Achilles' heel of traditional definitions of the artifact lay in the value judgment that determined artifactual status in the first place. What were the grounds for deciding in favor of one object against another."

Amen. The concept of passive, time selection has been mentioned. But how could this too native concept actually be implemented? Can measures of the interactivity of copying actually identify more meaningful as contrasted with less meaningful artifacts?

The answer is sure; artifactual meaning can be quantified this way. Perhaps some will think the measure too bizzare, but it will quantify. The measure of the Double Fold comes to mind...but in this case the measure is downstream dependent on the readership.

The interests of SHARP (Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing) come to mind. Increasing literature now traces the study of the physicality of library materials. Likewise the interdisciplines are establishing themselves that study the influence of original to copy dynamics, particularly in the interdiscipline of the history and sociology of reading. In turn these regions of scholarship are spreading to library and information sciences and enclaves such as above ground archeology of industrial and commercial history. Soon quantifying evaluation of artifactual fabric, much like survey of architectural survivals in historic districts, will be a methodology for selection of promising districs within library collections.

p.8 Fixity is in flux. This is amply established by Adrian Johns counterpoint scholarship of a previous perspective exemplified by Elisabeth Eisenstein. The anomoly of fixity turns out to be a weird exception of our own period that presumed a fixity of print. Any evidence around us now returns us to a normality of the flux of original and copy and the immense volatility of reading modes.

"If one is holding a fifteenth-generation fax, one cannot guarantee that the full content of the original is conveyed except by comparing it with the original, which has fixed the content by recording it at one instant in time."

Imagine the interactivity of original and copy at work in this iota. Graphic artists can maintain that the 15th generation image is actually the original, the previous provenaunce being the copies. A more realistic view would pose the derivative as a copy that may however act as primary evidence....copyflo output from a microfilm representing a lost newspaper comes to mind.

p.7 the bullets categorize artifacts that are retained without question. "The task force excluded from consideration those categories of artifacts that are always retained in the original." This an unfortunate disregard since these artifacts of unquestioned qualities have the ability to define the role of the artifact in general and the methods of identification for questioned materials.

Anyway the question of preservation of the artifacts of assured research value is purely technical. The flaw, as I mentioned, is that these artifacts of assured quality must exemplify the very interaction and use that must be measured in questioned artifacts.

Under "Originality" there is another missed opportunity. "Reformatting and copying information are analogous to translation from one language to another." How close can the narrative get to alerting practioners of consequences of any crossing of a reading mode threshold that can attend the process of reformatting and copying?

p.6 "In other words, artifacts are things that have intrinsic value, independent of informational content." Artifacts are comprised of medium, content and consequence. This premise is detailed further in an essay; "The Conservation of Meaning" that may be kicking around somewhere at this web site.

"Whether one disagrees with or accepts this definition and its implications, the diffiuclty it presents for libraries is that they have never had sufficient funds to meet the need to collect and preserve everything of potential research value. Thus, for libraries, this expansive view of artifactual value presents problems that are not primarily theoretical, but eminently practical."

In my view remarks on insufficient funding, which litter this report, are not as relevant as indicated here. For two reasons at least. The first is that in my opinion preservation may be overfunded when its services are compared with services of other library departments. Another reason is that preservation funding is not that related to access to artifacts. In my opinion this whole investigation should not be posed in a preservation context at all, but in a context of access automation relating specifically to the delivery of artifacts and their surrogates. Yipsalanti-ibso-facto should be focused on the interaction of original and copy.

p.5 gets us closer to the fabled, underlying conspiracy theory...but by refering us to p.56. (Best Practices)"In essence, then artifacts are complex objects..." The Report attempts to control artifacts upstream at the point of library processing. There is nothing wrong with this attempt and it can be argued that that is the best point to apply the curatorial attention. The conspiracy is to enlist scholars who process the artifacts way down stream in a reverse application of their own disciplinary agendas to the strange terraine of library processing. In this instance the wily library administrators are using scholarly incentives to fuel a preemptive matrix of access automation. This matrix will then have cannonical authority to save or dispose within logistics calculated to produce the desired access automation.

The scholars are being used. But that is a small issue. They are enlisted in a a far-left, consumerist agenda to engineer a top down management of the transmission of knowledge. Fortunately this will not work.

(this is beginning to be dangerous. for the last 9 government work days I have had a mystery referer with the call signal of a white helicopter)

p.57 (Best Practice) Whoa...this makes sense. Maybe I have been too premptive in my opinionated, rabid middle views. "Scholars and librarians..." (upstreamer processers and the downstream processors) "must collaborate to develop realistic policies for retention and disposition." Let's allocate collecting responsibilities to all stake holders jointly. What will we call this collalition. The collalition for the responsible transmission of knowledge (CRTK)

What would be the first action item for the CRTK relative to the role of the artifact? That might be to quantify the larger scope of interactivity between originals and copies across the whole spectrum of activities that determines the artifactual fate; the cycles of veneration and disregard, that lend meaning to "artifacts".

I will give you an example and a glimpse of the invisible infrastructure here. Lets say we are making a model of a 15th century Armenian binding. We make a field trip to record and photo document the artifact. We start to make the model and find we are uncertain how to manage certain structural features. We look at the components of the model. We study the field notes and photographs much more intently that we could at the time of their creation. We realize that all the disconsertion would be instantly resolved by a few moment of further observation of the artifact. That observation would lead us through more surrogation documentation, field recording, imaging, model making which would then, I guarentee, lead us to other very obvious unanswered questions. You get the idea; the meaning is in between in a continuous interaction of original and copy.

At the bottom of p.58 is a lonely bullet; "create registries of digital projects" this should read "create registries of the interaction of source originals and digital delivery systems" its just as good a bullet, only more accurate.

p.59 Recommendations; Thr first bullet, regional repositories of artifactual collection, relates to the last, development of more effective and economical preservation processes. This is because regional repositories can accommodate and achieve effective and economical preservation processes. Two examples come to mind.

The Andrew Mellon Foundation, NEH, IMLS assisted IPI/RIT preservation monitoring program is now entering a phase of field trials in 180 participating institutions. The next phase will be consensus building norms for regional storage conditions. This development will, for the first time, offer preservation managers regional norms of equivalent credibility to those used by building managers to establish energy saving norms.

Another related development is the increasing integration of preservation services for circulating and non-circulating paperbased collections. This irresitible convergence clears the decks for preservation management of digital archives. At the same time it develops a more effective and economical conservation practice based on the fabled premise of the "medium rare" collections. The motivation to this midway practice turns out to be the middle status between circulating and non-circulating access.

Tons of nuts and bolts here from shrinkwrap to topdown imaging to CMR (standard collection maintainance repair). An invisible infrastructure exists already.

Another p.59 bullet is also excellent. This recommends standard metadata as a component for on-line access. ...er, that is, it suggests metadata use for processing and conveying provenaunce of orignal and copy.

Finally, in areas of research, the bullet on researcher behavior is also excellent...shifting focus from upstream processing to responsive planning based on the churn and vitality of the various reading modes.

conclusion

CLIR Role of the Artifact

The paradigm shift that we have encountered is the technology assisted convergence of the reading modes. The modes of reading or modes of knowledge and information transmission of orality, writing and print are now served to a single interface.

As a result, some other things are happening. One of the things is an influence on the role of the artifact in transmission of knowledge and information. Its not too surprising that the role of the artifact is now much more intensely interactive with its surrogates or copies. To an increasing extent much of the meaning of artifacts has now migrated to the interactivity of originals and copies.

We can no longer partition artifacts from their surrogates. It is not a question of how many artifacts are preserved. Inevitabilities as well as planned management may impose a survival of 10, 1, 0.1, or 0.0001 percent. Whatever the amount saved, their meaning has now migrated to their live interactivity with delivered knowledge and information. Their meaning has migrated to their continuing role in the context of digital delivery.

And as a side effect, the preservation function has shifted from the preservation of physical media, to the preservation of meaning. Preservation still does artifacts...but it must also assure their continued interactivity with reading modes. Preservation is now also concerned with the preservation of meaning.

Artifacts are the backups for their own digital delivery.

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