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Archiver > RootsWeb-Help > 1998-03 > 0890057797


From: Gary Lee Phillips <>
Subject: Re: Let's get real
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 08:16:37 -0600


Don Watson wrote:
>
> Are you suggesting that we surrender?
> Personally, I don't plan to pull the plug.
> :)
> Don
>

Of course I'm not suggesting that we "surrender". But I worry a
great deal about people who think "everything is online now" and
"there is no need to deal with old books and microfilms" any more.
Working as a librarian, I run into this attitude daily. Lots of
folks are willing to setting for just any old thing that comes out
of a computer and will not question it or look for proof at all.
This is a very bad and possibly dangerous situation.

When the computers actually store the images of original documents,
not just someone's possibly incorrect transcription, then I will be
much happier to rely on them. This is already happening in a few
isolated cases. But the technology must be a lot better and much
less expensive than it is even today before this will be the general
rule.

-- Gary Lee Phillips mailto:
Personal home page http://www.lib.colum.edu/~phillips/
St. Clair Co. MI GenWeb http://users.rootsweb.com/~mistcla

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