Les anglonautes

About | Search | Vocapedia | Learning | Podcasts | Videos | History | Culture | Science | Translate

 Previous Home Up Next

 

Vocapedia > Technology > Archive of the Internet

 

Digital archiving / history / memories, Data loss

 

 

 

 

Archiving with M-Disc

Video    ExplainingComputers    18 September 2016

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pekgrP-v5O0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snow Byte & the Seven Formats:

A Digital Preservation Fairy Tale

10 September 2013

 

 

 

 

Snow Byte & the Seven Formats:

A Digital Preservation Fairy Tale

Video        LibraryOfCongress        10 September 2013

 

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfMgOKy9bPw

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Digital Preservation

is Important for Everyone

LibraryOfCongress

 

 

 

 

Why Digital Preservation is Important for Everyone

Video        LibraryOfCongress

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEmmeFFafUs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ariel Davis

 

The Blog That Disappeared

NYT

JULY 29, 2016

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/
opinion/sunday/the-blog-that-disappeared.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

digital memories        UK / USA

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/04/10/
521594471/preserving-memories-in-emails-to-a-toddler-a-window-into-her-parents-love

 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/16/
digital-black-hole-delete-memories-information-lost-google-vint-cerf

 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/14/
memories-in-the-digital-age

 

 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/
technology/even-digital-memories-can-fade.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

digital funeral        USA

 

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/01/
496226376/we-may-die-but-our-tweets-can-live-forever

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

what people leave behind online after they die        USA

 

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/01/
496226376/we-may-die-but-our-tweets-can-live-forever

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Should Happen to Our Data When We Die?        USA

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/24/
style/what-should-happen-to-our-data-when-we-die.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

preserve        UK / USA

 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/16/
digital-black-hole-delete-memories-information-lost-google-vint-cerf

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/02/13/
386000092/internet-pioneer-warns-our-era-could-become-the-digital-dark-ages

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

digital preservation        USA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEmmeFFafUs - 1 April 2010

 

 

 

 

 

preservation of digital art        USA

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9204359 - March 29, 2007

 

 

 

 

 

preserving digital memories        UK

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/sep/30/
internet.digitalmusic

 

 

 

 

 

preservationists        USA

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/08/18/
340716269/how-long-do-cds-last-it-depends-but-definitely-not-forever

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2013/12/22/
255843345/museums-give-video-games-bonus-life-but-the-next-level-awaits

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ephemera        UK

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/14/
memories-in-the-digital-age

 

 

 

 

 

ephemeral        UK

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/16/
digital-black-hole-delete-memories-information-lost-google-vint-cerf

 

 

 

 

 

be kept online        UK

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/14/
memories-in-the-digital-age

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

archive        USA

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/26/
573609499/library-of-congress-will-no-longer-archive-every-tweet

 

 

 

 

archive        USA

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/04/09/
300614977/the-new-age-leaving-behind-everything-or-nothing-at-all

 

 

 

 

archives in the digital age        USA

https://www.npr.org/2019/10/25/
772325133/as-president-trump-tweets-and-deletes-the-historical-record-takes-shape

 

 

 

 

 

archive of the Internet        USA

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/
magazine/how-an-archive-of-the-internet-could-change-history.html

 

 

 

 

 

The Internet Archive        UK

 

co-founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle,

an internet pioneer and entrepreneur

 

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/jan/07/
internet-archive-vintage-computer-games-oregon-trail

 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/26/
brewster-kahle-internet-archive

 

 

 

 

 

the web's memory        UK

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/26/
brewster-kahle-internet-archive

 

 

 

 

 

memory in the digital age > collective social memory        UK

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/14/
memories-in-the-digital-age

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

digitally stored information        UK

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/16/
digital-black-hole-delete-memories-information-lost-google-vint-cerf

 

 

 

 

 

store        UK

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/26/
brewster-kahle-internet-archive

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/sep/30/
internet.digitalmusic

 

 

 

 

 

 

storage        USA

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/
technology/as-a-data-deluge-grows-companies-rethink-storage.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

storage > hard drive        USA

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/07/11/
534865245/a-novelist-forces-himself-to-press-on-after-losing-100-pages-in-a-tech-glitch 

 

 

 

 

 

storage > diamond        USA

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/27/
science/diamonds-data-storage.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

storage > M-Disc

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC

 

https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=pekgrP-v5O0 - 18 September 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

heritage        USA

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/22/
291420005/preserving-audio-for-the-future-is-a-race-against-time

 

 

 

 

 

digital inheritance        USA

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/04/09/
300614977/the-new-age-leaving-behind-everything-or-nothing-at-all

 

 

 

 

 

digital 'after-life'        USA

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/10/
132617124/after-death-protecting-your-digital-afterlife

 

 

 

 

 

family photo album        USA

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2013/07/25/
205425676/preserving-family-photos-in-digital-age

 

 

 

 

 

data        UK

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/sep/30/
internet.digitalmusic

 

 

 

 

 

digital data        UK

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/16/
digital-black-hole-delete-memories-information-lost-google-vint-cerf

 

 

 

 

 

copy / back up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSOKKaRtRO4 - 17 July 2015

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2356577/
Why-digital-photos-easy-lose-Millions-face-
losing-precious-memories-dont-print-images-computers.html - 5 July 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

hard drives > How Long Do Hard Drives Last?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSOKKaRtRO4 - 17 July 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CDs > How Long Do CDs Last?        USA

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/08/18/
340716269/how-long-do-cds-last-it-depends-but-definitely-not-forever

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=130244610 - September 30, 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CD-R        UK

 

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/oct/24/
cd-r-generation-z

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

data loss

 

 

 

 

 

lose        UK

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/
google-boss-warns-forgotten-century-email-photos-vint-cerf

 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/sep/13/
i-lost-a-decade-of-photographs

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2356577/
Why-digital-photos-easy-lose-Millions-face-
losing-precious-memories-dont-print-images-computers.html - 5 July 2013

 

 

 

 

delete        USA

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/17/
1176602395/google-deleting-accounts

 

https://www.npr.org/2019/10/25/
772325133/as-president-trump-tweets-and-deletes-
the-historical-record-takes-shape

 

 

 

 

digital black hole        UK

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/16/
digital-black-hole-delete-memories-information-lost-google-vint-cerf

 

 

 

 

 

blog > disappear        USA

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/
opinion/sunday/the-blog-that-disappeared.html

 

 

 

 

 

blog, site > be taken down

 

 

 

 

 

be wiped out

 

 

 

 

 

delete

 

 

 

 

 

broken link

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

digitize        USA

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/06/03/
529155865/videotapes-are-becoming-unwatchable-as-archivists-work-to-save-them

 

http://www.npr.org/2015/01/18/
377819461/from-wax-cylinders-to-records-saving-the-sounds-of-history

 

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/22/
291420005/preserving-audio-for-the-future-is-a-race-against-time

 

 

 

 

digitize videotapes / tapes        USA

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/06/03/
529155865/videotapes-are-becoming-unwatchable-as-archivists-work-to-save-them

 

 

 

 

 

digitized libraries        USA

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2013/08/19/
213498478/combining-the-nations-digitized-libraries-all-in-one-place

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Corpus of news articles

 

Technology >

 

Data loss, Archive of the Internet,

 

Digital archiving / history / memories

 

 

 

The Blog That Disappeared

 

JULY 29, 2016

The New York Times

The Opinion Pages

Contributing Op-Ed Writer

Roxane Gay

 

The spectacles of life, sex and death are the mainstay of Dennis Cooper’s blog, DC’s Blog. I never know what to expect when I read it, but I always know I will be provoked, challenged and intrigued. Over the years, Mr. Cooper, an artist and writer, has curated any number of collections of ideas and images, revealing an inexhaustible curiosity about art and the human condition. He has unfailingly championed small-press writers, and particularly those who experiment with language, narrative and form.

I am especially drawn to Mr. Cooper’s posts on sex, death and violence — the things we do with and to human bodies. Often times, the work he shares is grotesque but impossible to ignore. Twice a month, he posts personal ads from international male escorts, young men detailing what they like to do sexually, what they will allow to be done to them, a display that is hypnotic and disturbing.

Then there are the collections of interesting things — demolished mansions, revolving restaurants, ruined flesh, miniature golf courses, fireworks displays, dioramas, amusement park rides. It’s never just a handful of images — it’s 40, 50, more. The sheer quantity becomes thrilling. Mr. Cooper’s blog also hosts one of the best comment sections on the internet, with a real community of people who engage one another and the art, with none of the blunt ignorance found in most comment sections.

Or, I should be speaking in the past tense. On June 27, Mr. Cooper’s Google account was deactivated, he has said. He lost 14 years of his blog archives, creative work, email and contacts. He has hired a lawyer and made complaints, and many of his readers and fans have tried to support his efforts. There is a petition circulating, urging Google to restore his work. Pen America, an organization that promotes free expression, has weighed in, saying that Mr. Cooper deserves a substantive response from Google.

Thus far, these efforts have been in vain. Google has not responded beyond saying there was a violation of the Terms of Service agreement. It has neither identified the specific violation nor indicated why it also deleted Mr. Cooper’s email account. It has not provided Mr. Cooper with the ability to download his personal information so he might rebuild his blog and email account elsewhere. In one interview, Mr. Cooper said he thought that the male escort ads might have led to his account’s being deactivated, but this has not been confirmed by the company.

When I contacted Google for further comment, I got a response that said, “We are aware of this matter, but the specific Terms of Service violations are ones we cannot discuss further due to legal considerations.” I asked about why Mr. Cooper’s Gmail account was also deleted and whether or not he would be able to retrieve the archive of his work, and I was directed to Google’s Terms of Service, Gmail Policy and Blogger Content Policy, which did not offer any useful specifics.

Mr. Cooper’s is not the only blog that has been deleted over the years. There are reports here and there across the internet about blogs, mostly, being deleted for violations of Terms of Service. What is happening to Mr. Cooper, though, in terms of lack of an explanation, seems to be unprecedented, and he has, as of yet, the highest profile of those who have experienced this measure of data loss.

Google’s relative silence is deafening and disturbing. Mr. Cooper is reluctant to call this deletion censorship, but given the nature of his work that is what it feels like. Regardless, Google’s actions here suggest that some boundaries shouldn’t be challenged. That’s a shame. There is a wide range of art in the world, but there is an urgent need for art that pushes us and makes us uncomfortable because it forces us to think, to question, to give into it, to resist.

I am all for conversations about art and its limits, but I do not want a corporation to be the arbiter of those limits. Google, as a private entity, is allowed to dictate how people use its services. It is allowed to dictate the consequences when people use its services in ways it doesn’t approve. Such protocols are outlined in Terms of Service. “By using our services, you are agreeing to these terms,” they state. Access is acquiescence. We are invited to use “free” services, and in exchange, Google puts ads in front of us and mines our online habits for data.

The scholar Langdon Winner has written extensively about technological progress without consideration of the consequences of adopting technology. Professor Winner coined the term “mythinformation,” the wishful thinking that with open access to technology, the world will become a better place. He has written of “computer enthusiasts,” that they feel there is “no need to try and shape the institutions of the information age in ways that maximize human freedom while placing limits upon concentrations of power.” The deletion of Mr. Cooper’s blog is, perhaps, evidence of what happens when we don’t try to limit concentrations of power.

In 2004, when Google went public, its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, wrote a letter to potential shareholders that, at the time, felt groundbreaking. It was something of a manifesto about running a company ethically and ambitiously. It was full of robust idealism including mandates like “don’t be evil” and “make the world a better place.” They made it seem as if it was possible for a large tech company to operate with a measure of humanity. It was a really nice idea.

What is far more disturbing than the transgressive work of Dennis Cooper is the cold reality of technological progress. The idea of a cloud benevolently storing our personal information, our work, our photos, our music, so much of our lives, is also really nice, but as users, we have no control over the cloud.
Sign Up for the Opinion Today Newsletter

Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, The Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world.

We surrender that control each time we write a blog post or log in to an email account or upload an image. The allure of all this technology is hard to resist. I use Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive and of course, the Google search engine, all day, every day. I use other online services, like Dropbox and iCloud, as well. Even as I write this, I am using several Google services, though over the weekend, I downloaded my archives using the company’s takeout service, which is pretty handy, should you still have access to your Google account.

When we use their services, we trust that companies like Google will preserve some of the most personal things we have to share. They trust that we will not read the fine print.

The Google Terms of Service state: “You can stop using our Services at any time, although we’ll be sorry to see you go. Google may also stop providing Services to you, or add or create new limits to our Services at any time. We believe that you own your data and preserving your access to such data is important. If we discontinue a Service, where reasonably possible, we will give you reasonable advance notice and a chance to get information out of that Service.”

Google, it seems, doesn’t even play by its own rules.

 

Roxane Gay is an associate professor at Purdue University, the author of “Bad Feminist” and the forthcoming “Hunger,” and a contributing opinion writer.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 30, 2016, on page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: The Blog That Disappeared.

The Blog That Disappeared,
NYT,
July 29, 2016,
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/
opinion/sunday/the-blog-that-disappeared.html

 

 

 

 

 

Bequeathing

the Keys to Your Digital Afterlife

 

May 25, 2013

The New York Times

By ANNE EISENBERG

 

IT’S tough enough to write an ordinary will, deciding how to pass along worldly goods like your savings, your real estate and that treasured rocking chair from Aunt Martha in the living room.

But you may want to provide for your virtual goods, too. Who gets the photographs and the e-mail stored online, the contents of a Facebook account, or that digital sword won in an online game?

These things can be important to the people you leave behind.

“Digital assets have value, sometimes sentimental, and sometimes commercial, just like a boxful of jewelry,” said John M. Riccione, a lawyer at Aronberg Goldgehn Davis & Garmisa in Chicago. “There can be painful legal and emotional issues for relatives unless you decide how to handle your electronic possessions in your estate planning.”

Many services and programs have sprung up to help people prepare for what happens after their last login.

Google has a program called Inactive Account Manager, introduced in April, that lets those who use Google services decide exactly how they want to deal with the data they’ve stored online with the company — from Gmail and Picasa photo albums to publicly shared data like YouTube videos and blogs.

The process is straightforward. First go to google.com/settings/account. Then look for “account management” and then “control what happens to your account when you stop using Google.” Click on “Learn more and go to setup.” Then let Google know the people you want to be notified when the company deactivates the account; you’re allowed up to 10 names. You choose when you want Google to end your account — for example, after three, six or nine months of electronic silence (or even 12 months, if you’ve decided to take a yearlong trip down the Amazon).

Google has ways to make sure that your electronic pulse has really gone silent; it checks for traces of your online self, for example, by way of Android check-ins, Gmail activity and Web history. Then, a month before it pulls the plug, Google alerts you by text and e-mail, just in case you’re still there. If silence has indeed fallen, Google notifies your beneficiaries and provides links they can follow to download the photographs, videos, documents or other data left to them, said Nadja Blagojevic, a Google manager.

And if you just want to say goodbye to everything, with no bequests, you can instruct Google to delete all of the information in your account.

Naomi R. Cahn, a professor of law at George Washington University Law School in Washington, says Google’s new program is a step forward in digital estate planning. “People should carefully consider the fate of their online presences once they are no longer able to manage them,” she said.

Other companies may also be of help in planning your digital legacy. Many services offer online safe deposit boxes, for example, where you can stow away the passwords to e-mail accounts and other data. Accounts like this at SecureSafe, are free for up to 50 passwords, 10 megabytes of storage and one beneficiary, said Andreas Jacob, a co-founder. Accounts can be accessed from a browser, or from free iPhone, iPad and Android apps. The company also offers premium services for those who need a larger storage space, more passwords or more beneficiaries.

There is always your sock drawer or another physical repository to store a list of your user ID’s, should you be deterred from online lockboxes by fear of cyberattacks or the risk that computer servers that may not be there in a few decades, said Alexandra Gerson, a lawyer at Helsell Fetterman in Seattle.

“Make a private list of all your user names and passwords for all the accounts in which you have a digital presence, and make sure you update the list if you change login information” Ms. Gerson said. “Don’t put user names and passwords in your will, though, as it becomes a public record when you die.”

Make sure that your executor or personal representative understands the importance of preserving these digital assets, and knows how to find them, said Laura Hoexter, a lawyer at Helsell who also works on inheritance issues. “Preferably the person should be tech-savvy,” she said, and know about your online game accounts, your PayPal account, your online presence on photo storage sites, social media accounts and blogs, and even your online shopping accounts where your credit card information is stored so that the information can be deleted.

AFTER you die, an executor or agent can contact Facebook and other social media sites, establish his or her authority to administer the estate, and request the contents of the account.

“Most accounts won’t give you the user name and password, but they will release the contents of the account such as photographs and posts” to an executor, Ms. Hoexter said.

Transfer at death can depend on the company’s terms of service, copyright law and whether the file is encrypted in ways that limit the ability to freely copy and transfer it. Rights to digital contents bought on Google Play, for example, end upon the person’s death. “There is currently no way of assigning them to others after the user’s death,” Ms. Blagojevic said.

Encryption is a common constraint, but there are exceptions. Apple’s iTunes store, for example, has long removed its anti-copying restrictions on the songs sold there, and Ms. Gerson advises people to take advantage of this in their digital planning. “Get your music backed up on your computer,” she said.

Up to five computers can be authorized to play purchases made with one iTunes account, and a company support representative advises that users make sure that their heirs have access. At Kindle, too, family members with user ID information for the account can access the digital content.

Professor Cahn in Washington says the time to prepare for the digital hereafter is now, particularly if serious illness is a factor. “If someone is terminally ill,” she said, “in addition to getting emotional and financial issues in order, you need to get your Internet house in order.”

Bequeathing the Keys to Your Digital Afterlife,
NYT,
25.5.2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/
technology/estate-planning-is-important-for-your-online-assets-too.html

 

 

 

 

 

History 1980-2000

has disappeared into the ether.

Sorry

 

March 23, 2007

From The Times

Ben Macintyre

 

We know what was written in the first telegram, sent by Samuel F. B. Morse in 1844: “What hath God wrought?” We know the words spoken by Alexander Graham Bell when he made the first telephone call in 1876, to his assistant, Thomas Watson: “Mr Watson — come here — I want to see you.” (The “polite telephone manner” had not yet been invented.) But we have absolutely no idea what was said in the first e-mail, just 35 years ago.

The digital age brought with it the false promise that everything written, filmed, photographed or recorded might now be preserved, for ever. The “save” key would eliminate the need for filing and storage. Since 1945 we have gathered 100 times more information than in the whole of human history up until that point. Entire libraries could be preserved on disks that fitted into a pocket. Paper was dead.

It has not quite worked out that way. Digital information may be impossibly voluminous and convenient, but it is also vulnerable and dangerously disposable. Already a vast amount of information has been lost. CDs disintegrate in just 20 years, whereas the Domesday Book, written on sheepskin in 1086, will still be with us in another millennium. Few people still write regular letters, but their replacement, the ubiquitous e-mail, is so easily deleted and forgotten, to say nothing of the fleeting text message.

Technology has already left behind the forms of electronic storage once expected to be eternal: the laser disk, the 5¼in, the 3.5in floppy, the Amstrad all-in-one word processor have all been flung into obsolescence, often taking their information with them. Only a small fraction of government bodies and companies even bother to archive their digital material. Who, save the most fastidious self-chronicler, takes the trouble to embalm their own e-mails electronically? Historians of the future may look back on the 1980s and 1990s as a black hole in the collective memory, a time when the historical record thinned alarmingly owing to the pace of technological change. Future biographers may be reduced to trying to extract personality from whatever electronic fragments survive, cheque stubs and those few ritual moments (birth, death and overdraft) when a subject still puts pen to paper.

I have recently spent many hours in the National Archives, ferreting through the wartime records of MI5.

The sheer richness of written material is overwhelming: letters, memos, telephone transcripts, diaries, scribbled notes in the margins. You can smell the pipe smoke and personalities wafting off the pages.

When MI5’s current files are released decades hence, historians will have a far drier time of it. Electronic messages not deemed to be of “archival” value are routinely deleted by civil servants, simply as an insurance policy — significant or potentially damaging information is strictly verbal, particularly since Jo Moore’s attempt to “bury bad news” by e-mail.

Arguably, the most important and reliable real-time histories of places such as Iraq and Iran are currently being written on weblogs, the online journals and discussion forums that are, by definition, mutable and impermanent. A historian 50 years hence would probably get the most accurate picture of life in Baghdad today by collecting and studying the blogs of the moment, but it may already be too late. The average life expectancy of a website is about 44 days, roughly the same as the common house fly.

Just as importantly, by committing to erasable electronic memory the things we once committed to paper, we may be denying future generations the chance to witness the warp and weft of our lives. Our ancestors were writers and hoarders. I have a collection of my grandfather’s letters in the attic, describing the life of a sheep farmer in New South Wales in the 1930s. They are of interest, I suspect, to no one but me, but to me they are invaluable, a chronicle of where I come from. What will we bequeath to our grandchildren? At best a bunch of antiquated disks that they may well be unable to open and read.

Anyone (with a magnifying glass and patience) can read letters, but there is a real danger that technology will leave much of the electronically written record marooned and illegible. The BBC’s Doomsday Project of 1986, intended to record the economic, social and cultural state of Britain for all time, was recorded on two 12in videodisks. By 2000 it was obsolete, and rescued only thanks to a specialist team working with a single surviving laser disk player.

When Nasa sent two Viking Lander spacecraft to Mars in 1975, the data was carefully recorded on magnetic tape. Two decades later, no one could decode it. The original printouts had be tracked down, and typed out again on paper.

And that, ironic as it seems, may be the answer. The Digital Preservation Coalition, a group encouraging governments, businesses and individuals to curate and preserve electronic information, recently published a report stating that “storage of printed copies of important documents is generally accepted as a reasonably failsafe method of preservation”.

This, then, is a plea for paper. So long as it is stored properly and acid-free, paper endures. Leave the ephemera to the electronic ether, but if you value certain words and images, preserve them on paper. The “print” button is a more faithful saviour than the “save” button.

Before the Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson sent his message to the fleet by raising flags using Sir Home Popham’s telegraphic code (a rather newfangled form of communication, which not everyone approved of) — whereupon the words were written down for posterity, on paper.

Today the same message would probably be sent by text — instant, easy, and instantly perishable: “UK xpx dat evry man wll do his duT.”

History 1980-2000 has disappeared into the ether. Sorry,
Ts,
23.3.2007,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/
columnists/ben_macintyre/article1555570.ece - broken link

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Explore more on these topics

Anglonautes > Vocapedia

 

technology

 

scanning photo / film negatives

 

libraries

 

past

 

 

 

 

 

Related

 

The Guardian > Technology / Internet        UK

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/
internet 

 

 

The New York Times > Technology        USA

https://www.nytimes.com/section/
technology 

 

 

 

home Up