| When I began updating this site in April 2020 I was amazed at how little information pertaining to scene painting and scenic artists was to be found on the WWW.
One broken link, which has been on the site for several years, yielded an insight toward explaining this.
Several years ago there was a Web site called The International Theatre Design Archive that was intended to provide an index to theater designs that are on the Internet. Sponsored by the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, it was a juried site. Also called Project 2000, its goal was to provide links to 2000 sites by the year 2000. Over the years the site developed problems when the linked sites were removed at the creators' servers. Many of the links in the index no longer worked and it became a problem. Because of the size of the sites, it was not practical to keep up with the changes. Because the site could not be maintained effectively, its contents were removed. The International Theatre Design Archive no longer exists. Sorry for any problems this may cause." The entry is signed by C.Otis Sweezey, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Theater and Dance Southern Illinois University. The key phrase in Professor Sweezey's comment is the linked sites were removed at the creators' servers. True, some artists might wish to remove their work from public access, but more often than not it is the hosting institution -- American universities particularly -- which are responsible for the disappearance. While books are carefully preserved, artistic work, and especially work placed on the WWW, is not. The most common explanation is that "we don't have the storage capacity on our servers." I would suggest, alternatively, that work not in print is considerably less valued than work, even if juried, placed on the internet. |