To Karen and all, Ideally, I'd like to see 3 copies made and one given to Union Parish Library, Lincoln Parish Library, and Louisiana Tech Library--even giving a copy to Ouachita and Shreve Memorial would be helpful. If you truly want the material preserve, La. Tech Library has an official archives where the material would be kept in archival boxes--however, use might be limited since most people don't think about going to a university archives for genealogy research. I know Lincoln Parish Library does send people to Tech to check the archives. Union Parish might be encouraged to do the same. Tech archivist, Peggy Carter, would be glad to take the material. I know this because I work at the Tech Library. Fred Hamilton ----- Original Message ----- From: "Karen Rice" <aberizn1@gte.net> To: <LAUNION-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, November 23, 2001 11:40 AM Subject: Food for thought > Hi, gang - > Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Below is a question Roy Austin > posed for all of us a couple of weeks ago that I am just now getting around > to posting on the list: > > "A thought question that you might want to pose to the mail list. I have > approximately 40 binders of research materials, copies of documents, census, > courthouse records, marriage licenses, etc. plus pictures, an old schoolbell > from the Buckley schoolhouse my grandfather attended and published books on > GA, AL, LA and ARK counties, cemeteries, census, marriages, land, etc. My > 16 year old daughter jokingly asked one day in the car, "Dad,what do expect > me to do with all of that "stuff" when you die?" I told her that hopefully > that time would be a long way off, but when the time came I expected that > she would build a house large enough to take care of it all. After getting > past the "yeah, right" response, it got me to thinking, especially > considering the paragraph above. Where will all of this effort and > resources end up? I don't think that the Union Parish library currently has > a true appreciation for the material that they would get, though I believe > that they graciously accept donations of printed materials when the get > them. The Lincoln Parish library in Ruston and the Louisiana collection at > Tech in Ruston will take them, but how does that really help the Union > Parish researcher? I'd be interested in what the other researchers plan to > do with their materials, especially if there's not an immediate family > member that is currently interested. > Roy" > > Of course, most of us involved here are trying as hard and fast as we can to > get as much data as we can online, but there aren't enough volunteers to get > it done free. I just never feel my data is complete enough to contribute it > to something like World Family Tree, even though I've found that in most > cases, it's more complete than the ones I've found there. Can any of us be > really sure that the world wide web is going to go on forever? Will our > data always be out there? I saw something last night on Discovery that > showed the Vatican preserving deteriorating documents, like a letter from > Leonard da Vinci in which the iron in the ink is destroying the paper > beneath, so the paper has hundreds of little razor-like slits in it. They > are scanning the documents and saving them on CD Roms, which are archived in > individual cases. One CD Rom will hold a lot of data, and some place like > La Tech might be more willing to hang on to them than cartons and cartons of > deteriorating paper. What does everyone else think? > > Karen > > Karen Mabry Rice, > USGenWeb Archives Coordinator > Union Parish, Lousiana > http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/la/union.htm > > >