Digital BW, The Print

Hi Peter,

Actually, it will be just as bad for government.  I worked for a number of years 
at the US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station and dealt with a 
large number of government agencies.  Information and data and valuable 
records got lost on a regular basis, including the results of people's life work.  
I know this personally because one of my projects was trying to dig up 
baseline ecological data for land condition monitoring projects.  People move 
around alot in government, everyone is way too busy, and systems often 
aren't in place for archiving.  And this has nothing to do with changes in 
technology in the digital world, which will make things much worse in the 
future.  NO ONE will be around to do these conversions in or out of 
government.  However, perhaps some forward thinking corporation will keep 
a room full of historical tecnology and charge you a mint twenty years from 
now to read those old floppies and do all the conversions needed to make 
them readable.  Most of the data will go in the trash.  Cheers,

Tom Andrews
http://www.wildlandart.com


>> Christer thinks someone will be "in charge" of doing this stuff.   
> But we're talking FAMILIES here, not banks or hospitals or government 
> agencies where there are specialists and bureaucrats to be in charge 
> of things.   NO ONE will be in charge.  Someone will inherit an old 
> trunk with lots of memorabilia and it will get broken up and 
> distributed and stashed away and moved around.<<