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July 03, 2009

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Roger Parker

You certainly know how to cheer people up, Dick!!

N Potter

For a point of comparison I would refer back to the recent article "Are You Still Printing Everything?"
And maybe these comments truly belong back there with that article, but the potential loss and fragmentation issue is the same, only on a different scale and with a slightly different scope.

Even though the article dealt mainly with individuals use of archiving, the "paper" principal still applies.
The durability of digital archives is only as good as those responsible for their on-going maintenance.
If someone is not PAYING THE BILL for the storage, or converting to/or using the all most recent formats, or still in possession of the original drives, or all of the above, then what is not on paper will all eventually disappear.

So many individuals point with pride to their vast, archived (unprinted) records and photos, and don't stop to think that if they were not there to access the files (did you leave all your updated passwords with your Will?), that those who come after us could just as well erase the drives and throw the computers up on Ebay. Especially since those file names - "Mary and Tom at the cabin...." are so concise and meaningful to future family history....
As graphic designers, we personally could spent quite some time complaining about the work for clients copied to and paid for in formats no longer in existence (Syquest anyone?), but blissfully, hard copies still exist to provide the history.

Genealogy is based on the written record and visual image, and always will be as it requires no work, no maintenance and no money on the part of the viewer or recipient, no matter how far away from the source it is.

Digital newspaper archiving is fabulous and a resource beyond measure, but ya know, somewhere along the line somebody ought to print some of those archives out.......

Dae Powell

Very sad and apathetic America, in the main, will hardly take note.

Dae Powell·

Ann

Thanks for the info. Have a cabinet full of microfilm Better switch to digital. Before to late.

Tina Micheal Ruse

Last year I wanted to order Microfilm copies of a newspaper here in California,they were available through inter-library loan.When I went to my local library to order them I was told I could order them but they had gotten rid of their reader and the only library they knew of with a reader was the main branch downtown!And you are not allowed to check them out even if you could access a reader.What good is keeping information you cannot access?

Mary Thomason-Morris, Archivist, Clarke Co. Hist. Assoc., VA

As a long-time archivist and genealogist I have been trying to get it thru to the 'gotta get the newest technology-digital is the only way to go' group that we NEED to save originals--no matter if their microfilm or digital recording doesn't get used but once in 10 years. Of course, if you are not a historian/researcher chasing down that obscure reference, or a genealogist trying to find Uncle George, then most physical archives are just a bunch of old, dusty papers guarded by little old ladies with blue hair. (I am a little old lady, but I do NOT have blue hair!)
So, being even more urgently fore-warned, I will keep doing what I have done for years---digitize, microfilm, photocopy, and hide the originals in acid-free boxes.

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