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From: Chris Rutkowski <rutkows@CC.UMANITOBA.CA>
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 1997 09:54:36 -0600
Fwd Date: Tue, 07 Jan 1997 01:28:22 -0500
Subject: Project 1947 - Backgrounder On Rutkowski & Aldrich

Drew Williamson writes:

> >Ed Stewart has proposed an on-going bibliography project involving
> >newsclippings.  Indexed in the project with be the large microfilm
> >collections:

> Glad to see someone else has picked up on this idea. When I was first
> started soliciting for this type of information for my database, there
> didn't seem to be too much interest.
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but this sounds like this database would be
> concerned with only those clippings that report cases.

When I first started in ufology, I began a clipping/article collection.
Since I was at a university, it was relatively easy to scour all the
scientific journals for relevant articles. AT that time, Interlibrary
Loans were free, and I was able to get all sorts of fascinating
documents. (My best aquisition was a photocopy of the *entire* Catoe
bibliography from the Library of Congress!)

I kept up the local newspaper clippings, but I quickly dropped those
that were outside of my geographical area unless they were of specific
interest. I also assessed the quality of the newspaper articles in my
decision. Given that most newspaper accounts had major errors in facts
and details, as well as biases, I valued them somewhat less for the
purposes of collecting.

I still have most of the articles, although basement floods, moves,
divorces and other such annoyances have caused some of the files to
disappear. I still have an excellent local clipping collection,
although I was humbled when Jan showed up in town and promptly found a
half-dozen more pre-1947 cases that I hadn't heard of before! Still, I
have somewhat more than 1000 local UFO cases on file now, between
clippings, articles and personal investigations.

My problem has always been storage and time limitations. While I've
collected the local stuff, collecting articles from papers in distant
towns did not seem cost-effective to me at the time. I can understand
the archival reasons now, but earlier in my career it was less
important than local investigations. I could investigate cases in my
geographical region, but to dig through morgues in other cities for
those regional cases seemed to "far-afield."

Having said that, I have to say I admire Jan and the others in the
Project 1947 group for travelling around and digging through archives
and microfilm reels. They are all finding many, many cases that
otherwise would have been ignored or missing forever.

I would vote that historical ufology is a field unto itself, clearly
separate from the abduction frenzy, conspiracy tenets and actual case
investigations.


--
Chris Rutkowski - rutkows@cc.umanitoba.ca
(and now, also: Chris.Rutkowski@UMAlumni.mb.ca)
University of Manitoba - Winnipeg, Canada