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V4 2001 INDEX       E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 4, Number 33, August 12, 2001, Article 12 SALVAGING DAMAGED TEXT Steve Pellegrini writes: "I'd like to make a comment regarding the fate of the Davenport library. It was sad enough that most of it had been damaged and that so little was at the time salvageable. Today, however, the state of computer driven 'textual forensics' and the scanning and light spectrum filtering is even now almost magically able to restore readable text from congealed globs of soaked pages. Eventually this technology will be advanced enough to make saving the text of even minor works like auction catalogues worth the small investment in time and money. As we all know old catalogues are invaluable in discovering the tiny factoid of attribution, provenance or variety on which the success of a project may hinge. My point is that today it is better to find an obscure dark, dry spot to store these boxes of rotting catalogues than to toss them into the abyss of the local dump. To some yet unborn researcher using tomorrow's tools an old box of trashed catalogues may prove to be the numismatic Dead Sea Scrolls."

Wayne Homren, Editor

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