Like many of my colleagues, I teach in the graduate schools at Simmons College. Unlike them, however, I don't teach in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Instead, I teach a class at the Center for the Study of Children's Literature. My first class of the semester was last night, so you can imagine the children's literature is on my mind. With a local private school closing its library because they claim the future is digital, I've also been thinking a lot about my obligations to society as somebody who is responsible for putting digital materials online.

As an instructor, I know how many of the materials I want my students to read aren't available as electronic books, audio books, or Kindle. And as a digital archivist I feel like the struggling floodgate between the masses of undigitized materials behind me and the tiny puddle of digital materials in front of me. Outside of the archives, I'm not sure how many people realize what a tiny percentage of our material is available via the Internet.

Some of this, of course, is just because there's too much to do. Some, such as our audiotape collections, are too expensive to digitize. And some of the materials that are not online never will be. Copyright law is a strange and complex beast, and digital reproduction rights are hard to obtain. Returning to children's literature, it's unlikely that we will ever be able to make much of the Marc Brown collection's amazing selection of Arthur storyboards, character concepts, and scripts available online.

One of our many fantastic books about the history of London, H. Barton Baker's Stories of the Streets of London, describes the shop of John Newbery, publisher of Goody Two Shoes and popularizer of children's books as a form of entertainment. Our collection guide for the undergraduate honors theses tells me that in the undergraduate honors thesis collection for the Department of Child Development we hold a number of theses discussing children's literature. That's a good example of the kind of material you will lose access to if you believe that everything important is available online. One day, if the resources become available and the permissions issues get worked out, some of the historical scholarship might appear online, but it will only ever be a tiny segment of what exists in print.

On January 15, 1973 Senator Edward Kennedy addressed the Tufts Community and public at large on the topic of health reform. Below is an excerpt from the speech. If you would like to read the full text, please visit the Digital Collections and Archives, Tisch Library Building, ground floor from 9-4 Monday through Friday.

Senator Kennedy with Mr. and Mrs. David Slater, Mrs. Herbert Karol and Mrs. Burton C. Hallowell.

From Senator Edward M. Kennedy's speech, January 15, 1973:

"I am delighted to be here at Tufts and to participate in the development of a new program in community health and the delivery of health services. That this innovative approach to the study of health care issues is being carried out at the undergraduate level is remarkable - it reaffirms Tufts leadership position in the education and training of future health professionals.

Several years ago, Tufts sponsored the Northern New England Student Health Projects. Health Science students from across the country joined together to study the health care problems of Massachusetts communities. Much of what was pioneered by these students at Tufts has now been incorporated into traditional medical school curricula; and the common theme of those summer projects --- that health care is a basic human right --- has now been accepted by the majority of the health establishment.

But the question remains as to how to make that right a reality for all our citizens.

In recent days the news media have been focusing on the epic struggle shaping up between the Congress and the White House. Commentators describe the confrontation in constitutional terms; they ask when the Congress will assert itself in the development of foreign and domestic policy. this is a critical question. It is critical not only because the processes of policy development have been challenged by the President [Nixon], but because the focus of the existing programs would be altered if the White House is successful. And those alternations would be made behind closed doors, shrouded in secrecy, without the restraining influence of public accountability. . . ."

Because of the cool advertisements

From the following editions:
March 3, 1981
November 14, 1983
September 29, 1997