Dear All,
Given that Museums are in the business of holding on to physical objects
(and I include archives in there) in perpetuity, how is any one coping
with the online "objects and archives", such as word documents,
spreadsheets, emails, images, etc, that we are generating everyday and
which are just going to keep growing in number and size?
Does any one have a policy for what they are doing with all things
digital, bearing in mind that much of today's "online objects" may only
exist in a digital form?
I gather that some funding bodies only expect digital material to be
kept for some 10 years and then it can be deleted.
Personally I think we should keep everything digital for ever, which is
a simple thing to write, but when it comes to 80-column punch cards, or
8 inch floppy disks, or old magnetic tape reels, then that is perhaps an
unrealistic attitude. And then there are the old Displaywriter files, or
dbase databases, or viscalc spreadshseets.
Your collective thoughts/wisdom would be appreciated, as it is something
that the Ashmolean (itself quite old at nearly 331 years) is now
contemplating.
Thanks
Jonathan
--
Dr Jonathan Moffett
Head of ICT & Webmaster
Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology
University of Oxford
Oxford OX1 2PH
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T+44 (0)1865 278030
Information : +44(0)1865 278 000 / www.ashmolean.org
For disclaimer see: http://www.ashmolean.org/email/
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