Digital BW, The Print

Well, yes and no. I think it depends what kind of data we're talking about
and hence what care is taken. If it concerns less important things, that
tend be put away and then forgotten for 30 years, then yes, probably your CD
or whatever will be ruined where paper would likely still be readable.
However, if it's important stuff that you really want to keep, you have
loads of possibilities to copy on various media and on new emergent media
ensuring future readability. Hereby data security is increased by at least
the two factors of easily being able to keep identical copies in separate
locations thus protecting against theft, fire etc., and by no quality loss
in the reproduction. Even silver negatives fade with time, and hence
information is lost. If care is taken with digital media, it could in
principle be reproduced infinitely with zero quality loss. Also remember,
that most historical paper-based sources have been reproduced several times,
and often with certain corrections, mistakes and amendments each time. But
then again, in the historical perspective we're at best making qualified
guesses.

 

On the practical level I store my photos on two identical sets of CD or
DVD's stored apart, written with 4x speed only as this is supposed to reduce
risk of degradation. As I use older photos now and then, I can check on the
readability of the media. Before or later I am also going to get a extra HD
just to store photos as an extra precaution. I have done this for 7 years
now and have never lost a photo.

I have somewhere a very technical article exploring the durability of CD/DVD
media. If anyone are interested I can probably find it.

 

Would be interesting to hear how others are storing their photos. 

 

best regards,

Peter

 

 

 

From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Richard
Smallfield
Sent: 28. juli 2007 02:26
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Digital BW] OT - My chat with an archivist

 

Hi,
last night at a university reunion dinner I talked to an old friend who is
an 
archivist.

I asked her: What is the most stable archival medium today? She said,
'Paper'. 
Then added, 'actually, parchment's better than paper. And rock's better than

parchment! We don't know how digital media will fare because it hasn't been 
around long enough. But is likely to be the least secure way of storing 
information that we've come up with so far.'

The more technologically advanced we have become, the more insecure our 
archival media have become.

So no wonder the Rosetta Stone has lasted so well. Good thing it wasn't 
written on a CD-R.

So silver negatives are a good thing to have. 

Food for thought,
Richard

 



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