Bookbinding question...or archiving question really, I suppose

[luzula]

I am going to make collections of all my old due South stories, because it would be very nice to have them on my bookshelves. Also my older non-due South stories, of course. But I can't decide how much I should strip them of the metadata and context in which they were written: who beta-read them, when they were posted, and in what community or for which prompt or challenge, and whatever other author's notes I made. Although I can't, of course, preserve all the comments and discussions that embed them in a fannish community.

One issue is how much work it would be, which is not trivial, because my hands ache when I type too much. Another is how I would format that metadata in a book--my best idea so far is to use the Latex "abstract" environment, which is what you have in the beginning of a scientific article written in Latex. It seems like a lot of bookbinders bind longfic, where of course it's not as much an issue, since you can just have a preface. Also not as much work as when you have lots of short fic!

This also leads into more philosophical questions--I suppose I don't actually trust the internet to last, let alone specific sites on it. When I'm eighty (assuming I live that long) would I be happy I preserved that information? Would anyone else? Or would it not matter much, given the probable general loss of that fannish community and the ephemeral conversations that were had in it?

Comments

[seascribble]

I think that when you are eighty, it's not just about how you will feel about having them on your shelves but also that you've preserved some ephemera and early 2000s thought/art/community for future generations and perhaps even archaeologists and historians.

[desireearmfeldt]

Yes.

And also, it's about looking back and remembering your friends/community of that time. Or it could be.

[luzula]

Oh, definitely! What I would like to save, too, are the comments on the fics, although maybe not in the book--I do wish there was some DW version of lj-archive. Or do you know if one exists?

[desireearmfeldt]

I don't know -- I keep meaning to look into that and not getting around to it.