The digital oublietteChances are slim your children will be able to enjoy the family photo album

[Demeter]

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/01/the-digital-d-1.html#more

Chances are slim your children will be able to enjoy the family photo album when they grow up .

Nowadays family pictures, writings and home movies are stored on digital media, under the impression that this personal information will be accessible for a lifetime. However, this is not self-evident. To guarantee the accessibility in the not even so far future, digital data requires active and regular maintenance – contrary to the archiving of analogue media. Even though this constitutes a large challenge for libraries, for them the problem is not insurmountable. But in everyday life, a lot of personal information is in peril of getting lost.

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"With increased convenience, so it seems, comes a decreased life expectancy."

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The benefits of a digital archive are unmistakably large. Electronic files take up much less space than the same amount of information on paper or on other analogue media. At least as important is the much higher availability of the data. Digital information can be copied en masse in a matter of seconds and a document residing in a digital archive can be consulted by multiple people at the same time.

Moreover, if this electronic archive can be consulted via the internet, the information is available day and night, from anywhere in the world. Sharing pictures was never as easy as it is today. At the same time, it’s impossible to damage or steal the original documents (if there are original documents). An electronic archive also has very powerful search and navigation capabilities. Unfortunately, the digital medium has important drawbacks too, which undermine all the advantages.

Physical obsolescence

The first problem is the physical durability of digital data carriers or storage media, which is notably shorter than that of analogue media. Stone, the most ancient information carrier, still has the best life expectancy. It lasts several thousands of years – but it is not in the most convenient archiving format...If treated well, paper can be kept for at least one hundred years, while good quality paper can be maintained up to 500 years. CD’s and DVD’s have a life expectancy of only 50 to 100 years. With increased convenience, so it seems, comes a decreased life expectancy.

Worse, however, is the life expectancy of (re)writable optical media, like DVD-R and DVD-RW. These are the storage media that people use to save their family pictures, writings and movies. Manufacturers of (re)writable optical discs claim a life expectancy comparable to that of pre-recorded compact discs, but experts say these claims are way too optimistic. Archivists count on a maximum life expectancy of around ten years, comparable to the life expectancy of magnetic tapes like music and video cassettes... Rewritable media might resemble pre-recorded digital media, but they are a very different technology. They are decaying much faster and they are extremely vulnerable to environmental conditions like humidity, temperature and even light. If not saved with care, these media can become unusable in just a few years, or even months. Hard disks and portable media like mp3-players and USB-sticks also have disappointing life expectancies of less than ten years. Therefore, if you want to keep digital information for a lifetime, you have to copy the data to new discs every couple of years. Archivists and professional photographers are doing that already. They also make two copies: one to use and one to store in optimal conditions.

Technological obsolescence

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[mainegreen]

1. We are in a learning period on how to deal with digital media.

Eventually I expect most people who care will end up utilizing automatic mirroring to an offsite (out of home) location that itself is backed up.
That's what my goal for the year is anyways.

[hunter]

2. I've still got digital stuff I saved in the 'seventies.

For a few years I did most of my writing on an Atari 800, and it's all available from my Linux desktop. The emulation is so seamless now I can simply click on an atari floppy disk image that's been transfered from hard drive to hard drive over the years, and it's just as if my old atari 800 is still on my desk.

I also have emulators for the first real computer I ever built, a little beastie that used a CDP1802 microprocessor, and also the first commercial computer I ever bought, a Sinclair ZX81.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_ZX81

I'm pretty good about making hard copy albums of our family pictures. The quickest way is to get 4X6 digital prints and slip them into a good photo album. Then I'll glue a CD envelope to the inside of the back cover to hold a CD of the photos.

[soleft]

3. I need to buy more printer paper