On Wed, 24 Jan 2001, Janet Davis wrote:
> Of course paper records should be kept. At present, they are a proven
> form of stable long-term storage for information.
This seems to be a widespread assumption in this discussion, but I am not
sure that it is true for the mass-produced "office quality" paper that we
use everyday. I have photocopies on this type of paper which were made in
the mid-1980s, and they are yellowing at an alarming rate, and certainly
faster than documents from the 1930s to 1960s that I have used. If a
paper archive is to be long term and stable then we must be careful NOT to
use modern mass-produced high-acid paper, but ensure that it is on
archival quality paper which is not going to eat itself within decades via
its own acid content.
I suspect that sooner rather than later we are going to find that paper
records need to be "migrated" before they become unreadable.
As a consumer of the types of archives being discussed I would like to see
standards encompassing both paper and digital archives which specify
the media/formats most conducive to long term preservation and
accessibility.
Andrew
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Dr. Andrew Millard [log in to unmask]
Department of Archaeology, University of Durham, Tel: +44 191 374 4757
South Road, Durham. DH1 3LE. United Kingdom. Fax: +44 191 374 3619
http://www.dur.ac.uk/a.r.millard/
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