The tip of the iceberg.

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Even a compulsive pack rat like myself doesn't save all the versions of papers I've worked on. The final version is enough, thank you. In special cases I'll also save copies with notes that just maybe still have to be worked up, or contain ideas left by the wayside in the final version but just might deserve attention in something else I may sometime write. I have, however, learned to simply digitize the notes and save them, and throw away the excess baggage of multiple versions.

It turns out that we're dealing with a very major problem here. The written record is (understandably) among the most important research materials for historians. But they don't only look at the final version of a document in order to determine what happened, or what decision was made, or what instruction was given. Historians of the modern era are accomplished archivists who trace the paper trail of various decisions in order to better understand how organizations worked, how decisions were reached.

But few of us, even when working in groups, work with versions in our word processors, or save each version of a paper. Poets no longer have to cross out what they first wrote and scribble above it a different, hopefully better, version. When we click on Save only the new version is saved - the thought process is lost. And it turns out that historians are distressed by this new reality, and are actively seeking out ways to preserve, at least on the governmental level, not only the end product, but the process as well. Who knows. If they can't make digital reality fit their research methods, maybe they'll have to find others methods, or other professions.

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Go to: Reflections of a Spring Cleaner.