A non member comment from Hans Geelback A. infoco System A/S, Denmark
Present day danish historians and archevist are not really interested in the
lifetime of a CD or what a company promise - what is important is the possibility
to use the dynamics, the new ideas that comes forward in the computer world and
move forward to new technologies as they become useable, payable and nessecary as
the present medias become unsafe / are replaced by new medias
What is put into the electronic media once can be moved to new medias at a low
cost.
The problem for us, now, is to scan it, to put on the media, to do it - and in a
way so we can use the information now and in the next few years.
Does any of you work with software that is more that a few years old anyway ?
Yours
Hans Geelback A.
Alan wrote:
> flannery@censa.org wrote:
>
> > Alan,
> > The point you mention is one of considerable concern to CENSA. Few
> > companies have committed (at least realistically and publicly) to long-term
> > backward compatibility. One of the leading companies in industry - Adobe
> > Systems - has committed to maintaining backward compatibility for their PDF
> > format for a minimum of 50 years. This is a dramatic increase in the time
> > frame (considering today's technologies) for the preservation of
> > Intellectual Property records or other important corporate records than
> > exists today. Adobe is setting a standard that CENSA is working diligently
> > to have others embrace.
>
> The record control policy of one of my former employers
> explicitly allowed for more than 50 years for lab notebooks.
>
> This issue is not merely one of software compatiblity; I was referring
> to the physical media itself. What are the expected lifetimes of data on
> magnetic disk and CD-ROM versus the known lifetimes of microfilm,
> microfiche and paper?
>
> >
> >
> > Microfilm offers long term archival - assuming the readers are still
> > operating / serviceable - but nothing more. As companies begin OCR'ing and
> > the likes, they quickly realize they have created not a solution to their
> > long-term access and archival needs, but another problem that needs to be
> > managed, updated, and serviced... often a distraction to the core business
> > of the revenue producing focus of the company.
> >
> > [snip]
> >
>
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