>Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 17:58:53 -0500
>From: Pam Reid
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>To: Linda Lewis ,
> Yvonne James-Henderson ,
> Betsy Mills , Kay Mason ,
> Jan Craven ,
> Pam Reid , Kathy Heidel ,
> Beth Wills ,
> Kim Harris-Myers ,
> Trey Holt , Bill Oliver ,
> Jim Powell ,
> Tim Stowell ,
> Bonnie McVicar-Briggs ,
> Lynn Waterman ,
> Megan Zurawicz
>Subject: Motion on Special Projects
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>
>Hi All,
>
>I must say that I am VERY distressed with the motion that is currently
>before the Board concerning dividing up the Archives into various
>directories for the individual Special Projects. This goes against the
>basic concept of the Archives itself. The USGW Archives should be the
>ONLY repository for genealogical and historical records submitted to
>USGW. The Archives is an online library meant to house these valuable
>records in a single location for the convenience of researchers and for
>long term safe keeping. There is NO need to create separate directories
>for Special Project submissions. This makes no sense at all. For one
>thing, this will result in similar records being housed in different
>locations. Take The Tombstone Project for example. There have been
>many cemetery surveys submitted to the USGW Archives directly. These
>submissions did not come through The Tombstone Project. Why should
>submissions made directly to the Archives be housed in a different
>location than submissions made through a Special Project? Sure doesn't
>make much sense to me.
>
>The Archives is OUR library. We all need to support it. Our digital
>library has the potential to be as important a repository as Salt Lake
>City. But, actions like the one currently before the Board will weaken
>the strength of our holdings and dilute the importance of our
>repository. This will also make the records somewhat more difficult to
>access. At present, the search engine gives researchers a very simple
>method for searching the archived holdings. Why fix what is working?
>
>Another major problem with this motion is that it will increase the
>number of volunteers needed to format and archive records and update
>indexes. I can't see any positive side to adoption of this motion.
>
>Many of you know me from my months on the Board as The Tombstone Project
>rep. Those of you who do know me know that my only motivation in this
>is the good of USGW. Though I have resigned as national coordinator of
>The Tombstone Project, I am still heavily involved. I WANT Tombstone
>Project submissions in the USGW Archives and not in some separate
>directory created for Tombstones. That was my goal in starting this
>Project 3 years ago - archiving as many cemeteries as we possibly can.
>So, I have to say that if this motion passes, we will dismantle the
>Tombstone Project. The submissions will become the property of the USGW
>Archives ( as the submitters expected them to be when they sent us the
>files). If someone then wants to start up a new Tombstone Project from
>scratch, they can be my guest.
>--
>Pam Reid in Virginia
>
>mailto:pamreid@dc.jones.com
>LISTOWNER: HEADEN & THORN(E)
>Branches and Roots
>http://www.geocities.com/~pamreid
>Tombstone Transcription Project
>http://www.rootsweb.com/~cemetery
>Gloucester County VAGenWeb
>http://www.rootsweb.com/~vaglouce/glouces.html