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There are four major categories of materials that Marvin Martin has:
- Teaching materials in general
- Books-on-tape/radio plays/audiobooks
- Slide-tape presentations
- Books
Much of this material is on slides, audio reels, printed matter, etc. In order to be saved over the long-run, perhaps we'll need to find an institution (such as an historical society, public library, or academic library) to establish a special collection. The materials would need to be evaluated in their present location, transported, stored, cataloged, and then shelved in order to be available to the public. This all takes resources of time and money. We may need help with setting up an account for donations with proper safeguards and transparency, fundraising, contacting libraries to house the special collection, making an agreement with them, etc. Depending on circumstances, some of the work could be digitized in order to make it feasible for a library with limited storage and shelf space to accept the collection and to make it more widely available to the public. Potentially publishing some of the work through a publisher, or self-publishing, would be a way to bring in some revenue that would pay for the digitizing and posting of other work.
Just posting everything online right away is not feasible because much of the work has to be converted to digital files. That's relatively easy with the books that are created in word processing files already, although ideally to share these widely, instead of just posting PDFs online, they would be formatted for ebook readers, cover art added, and posted several places online. While more and more people are reading books online, ideally there would still be hard copies available. Some type of institutional involvement would be helpful, to house some physical materials, and to make sure that what is posted online remains available over time, is reliably backed up, etc. Digitizing might include converting slide-tape presentations to online video, converting books to ebooks, and converting books-on-tape into audiobooks.
