Re: the digital vs. the archival

[pgs@thillana.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)]

   From: Jack Campin <jack@purr.demon.co.uk>
   Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 00:53:10 +0000

   pgs@thillana.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro) wrote:
   > Actually, if you are using scanned images as your archives, you should
   > not worry about the durability of electronic media.  The medium
   > (magtape, CD, etc.) on which your digitized photographs are stored
   > does not have to last as long as you want the photographs to last!  It
   > only has to last until the next generation of digital media.  Then you
   > copy the digitized photographs from the old medium to the new medium.

   And who is going to do this copying?

   Look what has happened to images created on negative media; for the great
   majority of the photographs created in the last 150 years, the original
   negative has been lost or destroyed.  You're expecting your descendants to
   do better?  Who do you know who makes backup copies of their home videos?

Who is going to do the copying?  Why, you are, or your descendants, if
they care about the images.  If they don't, and you're dead, then they
don't matter very much, unless you hope to be "discovered" as an
artist posthumously.  As for myself, I have no such expectations.

In any case, I expect that online archival storage companies will soon
spring up like daisies, and you will pay a fee and have your data
archived over the net, and the company will take care of copying it to
new media.  Of course, if you encrypt your data for privacy reasons
and you don't pass the key on to your descendants, they'll have to
wait until cryptanalysis advances to a point where they can break
it...