“Kindness makes you the most beautiful person in the world no matter what you look like.” ~ Unknown
I spent my day hangin’ with cool kids Karen Estlund (Oregon), Shawn Schollmeyer (Washington), Eric Weig (Kentucky) and Brian Geiger (California). We were part of a larger meeting concerning the preservation and access of news. This is a very complex archival issue, and it’s one that will always be engaging for me, in part because I’ve done it for so long, but mostly because I believe it’s one of the most important preservation issues facing the world (not an exaggeration – I mean whole world). Today, news evolves faster than it ever has. How well we preserve that news depends on the choices we make today, and how well scholars in the not-too-distant future will be able to evaluate our collective history based on what we save for them. I cannot underscore enough the value to our society of that final point. These goofy friends were involved in the National Digital Newspaper Program with Eric and I, so we’ve had many years to get to know and appreciate who they are, and what they’re all about. It’s people like them – and us – that keep the brain wheels turning on how to capture, preserve and fund our shared first drafts of history. I’m so thankful for all their hard work and years of friendship. I’m especially grateful to Eric for being my friend, and being so darned smart (being my friend is not a qualifier for smart, just to be clear). I love it when the goodness just clicks, and this bunch clicks every time we meet. I don’t know how much luckier I could be.
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