Re: Digital documents

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Date
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Curt Klug wrote: : 
>
>     I think the concerns regarding archivability of electronic
>publications are certainly valid, but I think they are really the concerns
>of the professional archivists rather than of the typical end user. 
>Certainly the electronic librarian (if you can forgive this adjective/noun
>association) will need to be concerned with the shelf life of the
>particular digital media used.  Coding schemes and hardware needed for
>reading and transferring data will also be important considerations. 
>Platforms that will make that electronic data available to the largest
>possible set of users will also be a concern.  But these are
>considerations that most of us need not be concerned with directly.

I agree with most of what Curt wrote.; However, I would not consider media 
decay to be largely a concern of libraries and big outfits.  You might be 
surprised at how fast your own tapes and disks can decay.  If you have disks 
or tapes more than a few years old, they should be transfered to newer media 
as soon as possible. I learned my lesson the hard way.  About 12 years ago I 
had a lot of data on 8" floop disks, which commonly used at the time.  I 
still had a disk drive that read them, so was not too concerned about 
leaving data sit there.  However, when I went back to read some of the disks 
about 3 1/2 years later, many of the disks had major areas of garbled data.  
When I asked some technicians about this, they were not very surprised and 
attributed it to magnetic decay.  Yes, I had some back ups--also on 8 inch 
disks that were also garbled in many cases.  Some important archives were 
permanently lost.  More recent media may last somewhat longer, but I would 
not count on it.  Better to be safe than sorry--get it onto current media 
ASAP.  Incidentally, I understand the library of congress, news agencies, 
movie studios, and other institutions are having major problems with decay 
of video tapes, movie films, etc.  In many cases the media is decaying much 
faster than anyone thought it would (sometimes due in part to poor storage 
conditions, other times just because of the nature of the recording media).  

Last, while on the topic of media decay, I should caution anyone saving 
photos on slides that Kodachrome is much better than Ektachrome or other 
slides (all of which are based on similar dye and development processes 
except Kodachrome).  Many Ektachrome slides fade out and become very bluish 
after just a few years (I think they're too bluish even to start with); 
whereas Kodachrome sildes have been known to last for decades with little 
degredation if stored properly (cool, dry, dark place).  I've read this in 
several sources and it matches my experience.  

Glen Kuban
paleo@ix.netcom.com