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Conference-related Papers & Thoughts:
Interview with Margaret MacLean and Ben Davis
with Host, Tony Kahn, of Public Radio International (Nov. 1997)Time & Bits Conference Background Paper
by Peter Lyman & Howard BesserHow Much Information Is There In the World?
by Michael LeskOther Papers on Preservation:
- Film/Digital/Film
by Michael Friend, Director of the Academy Film Archive
Great Reference...
Into the Future, a videotape produced by the American Film Foundation, surveys some of the questions raised and problems posed by the proliferation of digital information and specifically, electronically archived data. The video presents the problem as one that has been unanticipated in commercial and technological surges to conquer new territory.
The issue of data preservation is not a new concern. The video surveys some examples of the deterioration of magnetic tapes after twenty years, a problem now faced by organizations as large as NASA and as remote as the Navajo Community College, to highlight the critical nature of the problem. Unfortunately, there have been many catastrophic digital disasters as well. Some of these include the vanishing of the primary national database for people with disabilities in Oregon; the loss of the corporate records, in New York, of the Pennsylvania Railroad; and in several states the inaccessibility of land use data because of the loss of software. The video also notes that with a growth rate in digital information that doubles annually, our vulnerability to loss of important digital information due either to equipment obsolescence or failure of preservation format is growing perhaps equally as fast as our reliance on the technology itself. As Deanna Marcum, President of the Commission for Preservation and Access points out, any money that goes to digitizing information is money that is possibly being reallocated from preservation activities. Thus there is the possibility of an inverse relationship between the growth of digital data and the extent to which we are all threatened by its potential loss.
For more information regarding Into the Future, please contact the American Film Foundation at (310) 459-2116. Into the Future aired on PBS on Wednesday, January 14, 1998 at 10:00 p.m. It will be screened again at the Time and Bits Conference at the Getty Center on February 10, 1998.
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