Flailing through the Archives

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/04/usfunded-health-sear.html

This is absurd.  I’m really ticked off.   This story has been picked up by multiple blogs already, but we were discussing Thesaurus(es? i?) in class yesterday, I thought it was really interesting.

Limiting search terms hurts everyone.  By removing a commonly used MEDICAL TERM from the thesaurus with no warning is irresponsible and is a violation of trust.

By limiting results as a search, both sides are hurt.  Anti-Abortion rights activists cannot access information that would help him, and Pro Abortion Rights activists cannot access information that would help them.  It doesn’t matter what side of this debate you are on, the censorship of a common medical term hurts everyone.  Say you wanted to write an editorial about abortion and wanted to search this database for information to make your point… because it is a federal funded database, you wouldn’t be able to get your information.

Now, how about that for not being a good thing?

As the archival assistant here, I tend to get old video tapes chucked at me a lot.  This is both interesting and frustrating.  Interesting, because it turns shelving into a puzzle that involves moving vast numbers of VHS tapes around and frustrating because I don’t know if the tapes are important or if we have any paper description of them anywhere.

Today, I transcribed a tape at the 2002 Student Service Awards.   It was a speech given by Late Senator Paul Wellstone.   Seeing that he was kind of a big deal here, I decided to search for the text of the speech.   Alas, Sen. Wellstone gave two speeches that day.   One was two the DFL convention, and the other was at this awards ceremony.   The speech did not appear anywhere online.

So, I called up the state archives.   I talked to a lovely Reference Librarian who informed me that while the text of his speech probably exists in their archives, it has possibly not been accessioned yet, and, 6 years on (and this is just my understanding), they have not come to an agreement with the Wellstone family on how much should be released to the public.  Being a member of the public, it’s tough luck for me.

So, this morning was spent infront of a TV that has no remote control running back in forth, pausing it, rewinding it, playing it, and trying to type it out at the same time.  But we now have a paper copy of the text.