Not only is material from 1850 readable but from 1600 and 1300 and so on
backwards. My concern is not only that CD's etc will certainly not be
accessible within 30 years (much earlier, I would say) but that the ink on
print-outs will be short-lived too. The ephemera that are so useful to
Local Historians and which can be found in Record Offices (receipts, bills,
day-to-day communications etc) will just not be there for those who follow
us in years to come. I see no way out...we can't expect everyone to revert
to pen and pencil.
Gerard McSweeney
----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Read <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2002 8:49 PM
Subject: Re: Archiving of online materials
> I think it would be better to print your web site pages on paper, provided
> there are not too many, and archive these in one of those very attractive
> folders one can get with plasic transparent pockets. The fact that you
have
> filed the paper in a folder like this enhances the subject so that anyone
> finding it in years to come might realize that the pages are not simply
> ephemeral and out of date copies.
>
> I suspect that within about 30 years our present CD-ROM will seem very
> archaic and not many will have the technology to read those written in
2002.
> Apart from this I think it possible that CDs will deteriotate physically
so
> much in the next 50 years (perhaps much sooner) that it may be impossible
to
> read them anyway.
>
> But paper is paper. Recently I saw a persoanl diary written in pencil in
the
> 1850s and it was just as clear as ink would have been. Perhaps even
clearer.
>
> Brian Read
>
> > From: Jane Knight <[log in to unmask]>
> > Reply-To: "From: Local-History list" <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 17:52:57 +0000
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Archiving of online materials
> >
> > This is a follow on from a look at Frank's excellent web site. What sort
of
> > archive policy do those of us that manage web sites have? I create web
> > pages for a local brass band that I hope will be of interest to local
> > historians in the future so I try and store everything to CD on a
regular
> > basis. Should we be seeking to deposit such things with local history
> > societies? What do others think/do?
> >
> > Jane
> > That passed so may this.
>
>
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