When it comes to archiving, a major obstacle to overcome is personal prejudice and small mindedness.

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

When it comes to archiving, a major obstacle to overcome is personal prejudice and small mindedness on the curator's part. I see it all the time with special collection libraries and museums I deal with. Many times the digital material I've tried to place as a donation with special collection libraries has been refused because I have it or a portion of it online. And what happens down the road? The prejudiced people that run some of these online sites remove it. Now where is it?

But besides that, there is no comparison with having material at your fingertips, on disc or or the server when it comes to searching through it as compared to trying to search through it online or trying to download it with slow and spotty internet service that some of us have. In addition, these small minded archives would have the hi-resolution digital material in their collection and not the lower resolution material that is online. And they could provide a backup to the online material as well. But they just don't get it. 

And since I brought up resolution, keep that in mind with your archival work. I see a lot of things archived that are terrible resolution. Sometimes we have no choice and low resolution is all that we can get. But if you have a choice, archive in decent resolution online. Use resolution that could make a decent facsimile, if one day all that is left for the historical record is your last extant copy.

 

 

Giant Alsace bow - selection from the Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Fashion & Hair Archives.

 

Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Advertising Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Audio Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography