3017 A librarian speaks out about copying

Way to go, Phoebe! Phoebe Simpson is the Technical Librarian & Conservation Specialist at the Rhode Island Historical Society Library in Providence. I was looking her up for verification that she had indeed discovered with some other writings a rare 1644 edition of Bloudy Tenent by Roger Williams, who wrote about separation of church and state, and had his books burned in England. He had immigrated to the future U.S. (Massachusetts) in 1631. I saw the item in Christian History & Biography, Winter 2006, the second evangelical title for my public library, purchased at my suggestion(s). UAPL has at least 40 magazine titles on computers and digital gee-gaws, but couldn't seem to find any appropriate Christian titles.

In my sleuthing, I uncovered some off the cuff remarks she said on a library listserv (discussion group), and thought she sounded like a woman after my own heart.

"Sorry to say, but money still talks. Here is says, "Do your own work." Or expect to pay market rate for the archivist's time."

At her library, you can expect to pay $45 an hour for the first hour, and $40 an hour after that, with deliveries, 4-6 weeks if you don't want to carry your own water--or research. Libraries and archives aren't Kinko's, she says.

She also writes about the damage that photocopying does to documents, "with 1 photocopy equal to 24 hours of daylight exposure and scanning is worse."

"Taking notes," she writes, "was sufficent for 98% of researchers until the blessed advent of ubiquitous photoduplication in the 1980's. Modern culture encourages people to "get a copy" of whatever they can. When the collections are damaged a little bit by every round on the copy machine I don't think it is excessive to encourage people to be selective in what they really need to photocopy (with a $.50 per page preservation charge)." May 11, 2005, Phoebe Simpson, Archives & Archivists List

libraries and archives
Rhode Island Historical Society Library
library preservation
photocopying