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Archivists do indeed have goals. Those goals are varied and change over time. But the bulk of material archived from the early modern period was archived for go
by UncleMeat 3y ago
Archivists do indeed have goals. Those goals are varied and change over time. But the bulk of material archived from the early modern period was archived for goals entirely separate from the preservation of beauty. It is an error to say that there is a simple misunderstanding of the nature of old books because those that are in the archive are very disproportionately beautiful.
- taeric 3y agoRight. You are talking about archivists. I was making a broader point of society. Especially for many old books, it is not shocking that the ones that were there to be archived were the pretty ones. Many of the very beautiful things were literally done for rich sponsors. I fully cede that someone whose job is to archive stuff likely does so for the sake of archival. Even there, I suspect there is largely a bend towards things we see as beautiful; but I grant archival for its own beauty is a thing and most of the bend will be before the archivist is involved.