andrewducker | Interesting Links for 28-11-2024

2. Historians have been concerned about this for a couple of decades? Librarians have been concerned about it for longer than that. I learned about this issue in library school 40 years ago, and myself wrote an article about it 25 years ago. Not to boast: the point is it’s no surprise.

2. I think this is possibly the second digital dark age, or at least the second time that people have worried about one.

I was aware from the eighties that storing information digitally was not as reliable as on paper.
Early in the nineties I became aware that NASA had a department of "copying tapes to the current format" !

This first (potential) dark age was about a loss of unique information.

The worry about Twitter (which appears to be from 2 years ago - the MIT paper is dated 11 Nov 2022) is about published information, equivalent to losing every copy of a newspaper, as well as the loss of one to one letters and private notes.

is missing flu and COVID.

I appreciate people making hard copies of all kinds of documents and articles and blogs and whatnot. I say that is only half the battle. Unless you are printing it on material that can withstand the landfill, it will still be lost.

I am currently struggling with "nobody's gonna want my shit when I die" and I know that perfectly beautiful things are going to be hucked in the dumpster. Nobody is going to keep your perfect collection (no edition missing) of Intensely Minute Details About Fascinating Subject Monthly, never mind printed out binders.

If an impregnable fortress of government funded space accepts a copy for storage, maybe the chances are better.

This made me think about The Library of Congress - is it safe from the ravening of Trumpilini?

Interesting Links for 28-11-2024

no subject

no subject

no subject

Digital Dark Age