In a message dated 11/16/01 11:16:55 PM Central Daylight Time,
lathrrs@snip.net writes:
<< I have no axe to grind but I am a
bit concerned that a private group is responsible for the maintenance and
making
available government documents to the public.
>>
While researching the Reo G-742 trucks, I was looking for some particular
photographs (in fact some of them the same ones in Crismon's wheeled
vehicle's book), I approached the government entity who Crismon
credits.....and I was told by more than one person....when the budget cuts
came, and we had to move, all these negatives were thrown away!
Now, owning a small business, I know how much paperwork that even a small
entity can generate.....and I realize that some of today's trash his
tomorrow's history, yet some if it even in a hundred years will still be
trash. And it is hard to make the call of what is what, so while in
retrospect I lament the loss of these things, I certainly understand it.
My point, had these negative's been donated to the MVPA, the NHRA, NCAA or
NASCAR, (or even Crismon himself) they MIGHT still be around...but they are
not.
In the grand scheme of things our hobby is awfully unimportant to John Q.
Public...
While researching the same project, I went to the National Archives, looking
for some documents I thought they MIGHT have. I located the finding aid,
which showed the information I requested had been donated to NARA by TACOM in
1982. These several hundred linear feet of documents had been improperly
cataloged at could not be found. Fortunately a sympathetic archivist
escorted me into the stacks where we spent hours hunting a needle in the
haystack. When these were found, he corrected the cataloging problem.
My point, apparently, from 1982 to 2001, no one but me had wanted to see any
of these thousands of documents.....so should NARA also have to make room for
the truckloads of stuff, at taxpayer expense, that MVPA is getting? Or
should it be thrown in the trash? Or should MVPA get it?
Some of my experiences,
David Doyle
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Dec 07 2001 - 00:36:59 PST