Electronic Records Archiving
Interesting article from the Smithsonian, on how they’re dealing with electronic records management. This is starting to be a big deal at my employer, and I reckon at a lot of other ones as well.
The themes in here seem to be quite sensible: centralise, update. Get things off removable media and into a central storage system. And make sure there’s something around that can read the files themselves, while maintaining the integrity of the files themselves.
An interesting discussion can be had around what “integrity” means too. Does this mean the file has to remain editable? After all, when looked at as a communications medium, word processing is inherently an interactive, editable medium. Is imaging the file to a PDF (or similar) good enough, or do we need to ensure that there’s something around that can open these files in such a way that they can be edited?
Like “dead” languages, digital formats “die” too when no one is using them to read or write files. When a written, spoken, or digital language dies, entire libraries of information are wiped out, sealed forever unless someone is able to reverse-engineer the language and cobble together an appropriate translation device. In digital records management, it seems that a regular refresh cycle is important, to ensure the data is presented in a language that isn’t dead.
With digital, you’re trading paper’s universal readability for infinite storage and very good disaster protection - as long as you remain vigilant about file formats and refreshes. Don’t leave anything behind.
(Please note: I refrained from making any comments about a 5.25-inch Wang. Until just now.)