Chrysler just destroyed their own historical archives..
Admittedly, that doesn’t have much to do with Orange County history, (the subject of this blog,) unless you count the millions of Chryslers that have driven our roads since the 1920s.
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However, it serves as a cautionary tale about short-sighted organizations that try to save money by axing their priceless (yet inexpensive-to-maintain) historical archives. After all, who knows what "penny wise and pound foolish" cuts still await California as our economy circles the drain?
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According to Bob Elton at The Truth About Cars, Chrysler's new owner, Cerberus (named for the three-headed dog at the gates of Hades), "eliminated its archivist position. They stopped funding the documents’ maintenance. The company limited access to their archives and then stopped it altogether. Worse was to follow. With little notice and no planning, Cerberus literally abandoned the engineering library at the Chrysler Technical Center. The library was shuttered and the librarian laid off. And then the real crime: all the library’s books and materials were offered to anyone who could carry them away… Within a week, a collection spanning decades was scattered to the winds; the books and other materials will never again be available in any coherent, comprehensive form.”
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As one reader responded, “Destroying any archival material for the chump change it would take to preserve it is insanity.”
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Another wrote, “Heritage is an asset at which the bean counters have never been able to attach an actual $ sign to, therefore, as far as they are concerned, it’s not [important]... The documentation being sold, trashed, lost, stolen, and given away… borders on illegal. At the minimum, immoral.”
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Amen.
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Remain vigilant folks.
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(The photo above shows the Chrysler Corp. building at, 1111 N Brookhurst St., in Anaheim, during the 1960s.)
