[ILUG] Storing for Historical Record? (OT)

[Barry Redmond]

This is a serious and well known problem for archives all around the world.  
There is no accepted solution other than to print everything on paper.  I 
know that the Irish National Archives have a growing problem because an 
increasing amount of the data they get from Government departments is in 
electronic form, and they must be able to guarantee to be able to read it 
indefinitely.  The rapid obsolescence (sp?) of electronic data formats over 
its short history indicates that any format will become unreadable in a 
relatively short time.

It sounds to me like you need to talk to a professional archivist.  If the body 
of work is as potentially valuable as it sounds then maybe you should even 
ask the National Archives for advice.  If you want to do that contact me off 
list.

Barry Redmond

On 1 Oct 2002 at 15:44, Ronan Cunniffe wrote:

> Hi all,
>     I've just been asked to create a physically archivable copy of somebody's
> account.  Since the owner was a) an internationally renowned theoretical
> physicist, and b) still actively doing physics when he died, it is probable that
> his account contains unpublished papers and/or other work of significant
> historical value.
>     The archive is <100MB, I can guarantee darkness and coolness but not low
> humidity, and the result has to survive decades.  Lots of decades.
> 
> I was wary of CD-R, but am now leaning that direction having read
> www.cdrfaq.org/faq07.html and some of the pages linked from it.  (Basically, if
> you choose good media, a good writer, handle like fresh eggs and store in
> dark/cold/dry, CD-R may be good for 75-100years.... where's that "mediocrity"
> de-motivator? :-)
> 
> Anybody got any better ideas, or links to discussions of this?
> 
> Ronan.
> 
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