Preservation: The Final Frontier.

摘要

Tom Wilson, professor emeritus at the University of Sheffield, explored the perils andnchallenges of information preservation in a talk at the 2011 Annual Meeting. Wilsonndescribed 2011 technology as quaint from a future perspective and retraced the evolutionnof known document formats from cave painting and papyrus through clay, wood, paper,nmicrofilm, laser discs and today’s variety of digital record formats. Not only is thencontinuing evolution in formats a challenge in itself, but the content of bygone eras maynnot be comprehensible to those who follow. Decisions about what to preserve come intonplay, involving judgments at a point in time that may not be the same from a differentntemporal viewpoint. These issues, together with migration through versions of hardwarenand software, suggest keeping lots of copies in safe places, leading to impossibly hugenamounts of data to store indefinitely. Wilson mused that reverting to paper, following digitalnlibrarian Brewster Kahle’s lead, might be our best option