The post-processing labor is far, far more more involved and costly
for a digital project--someone has to index and then link up all those
images so that they display in proper order.

Your point about simultaneous users is well taken, and I love using
high-resolution digital images--but before research use, we need to
value *preservation* of the records.  I doubt many institutions have
even 25% of their holdings on microfilm.  To better secure the
collections, and for my tax dollars, I'd rather see that number
increased to 50% or 75% and reserve the Cadillac treatment for the
most important, highly used records.  I think that the Library of
Virginia is doing a good job of balancing these competing interests.
One person's opinion.

Karen Stuart



On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 8:08 PM, Lyle E. Browning <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> A scanner already in place costs the same as a person to run a MF machine,
> presumably. After that, MF costs are way higher. Far fewer people can have
> access, it's B&W, the resolution isn't great, and so on and so forth.

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