Who do they think they are?

from IWR Blog by dgriffin
Today’s Guardian reports that family historians (both professional and amateur) have raised concerns over the lack access being given to paper-based archives. The report says, “There will never again be public access to the paper records”.

This report raises a problem for family historians but a lack of paper records is not only creating difficulties for this group of people. Have you ever tried to get hold of a government leaflet on ... [fill in your chosen subject here] only to discover that "it's online at ...". You want it to give to a client (customer, friend or whomever) and it would be good to be able to do this as part of a "pack" of information which the other person can take away and study at his/her leisure. Oops, printer gone down, PDF doesn't print, it's so colourful that I can't afford to do it etc etc. Ridiculous!

And if I want to look at how the same leaflet has changed over time and need to rely on someone printing out the new "online only" information and preserving it in the right sequence.