On 25/05/07, Karl Miller wrote: > "Steven C. Barr(x)" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: ***Further, at > least IMO, the reason for preserving intellectual property, including > things like newspapers, magazines, sound recordings, still and moving > images, usw. is so our posterity (assuming we have such a thing) will > have the necessary information to understand and/or comprehend our > times. > > I believe that the reason we have such little support for preservation > is that society does not value history. What is the value of history? > I just typed that in at google. Most of what I read suggests that the > documentation of history satisfies curiosity. It is more than that. An awareness of history enlarges the world you live in, like the discovery of a new continent or Hubble's discovery of the nature of the galaxies. In the case of music, a person who knows only the music of his own time lives in a small world. Records from the 1920s, or reconstructions of how music would have sounded in the 1720s, open up windows. In the case of oral history, that speech really is a part of another world. > > One other reference I encountered came from a 1934 speech to the > Kansas Historical Society, "The point I wish to emphasize is that our > history is in the making; it is not a dead thing to be pulled out and > praised or deplored; and our Historical Society, therefore, is not > merely a custodian of the past, but is the recorder of the present, > and so is as vital and essential to Kansas as any department of the > state." > > I also found the statement "Public appropriations for historical > societies have been reduced everywhere." I thought to myself, so what > else is new... > > So what is the value of our recorded history. How does one place its > worth within a context of what is valued by our current society? > About the same value as transport systems. > Regards -- Don Cox [log in to unmask]