Thing #10

Technology Blogging

I love new gadgets and playing with technology but I also enjoy stepping back and looking at the unintended impacts caused by changing technologies.

On issue that fascinates me is the issue of legacy formats in digital preservation. Have you tried to open any file you saved on a disc 5 years or more ago on a different computer than you have now and created with a different version of the software you have or created with different software all together? Not easy, is it? Did you even get it open? That is a legacy format problem.

This is a basic article explaining the problem from the BBC: Warning of Data Ticking Time Bomb
This problem has affected me. I have some great stuff locked on discs created with an old version of Microsoft Works that I still hope some day to get out. Now that is not as important as NASA and other government agencies not being able to read data on old paper tapes or those large computer tape decks but think about what it means for all digital information.

There is some great work being done with software than emulates (or pretends) to be the old software and hardware so the data can be unlocked and migrated to a new format. Still with every format change the chance that material will be lost is very real. There is a lot of information stored on CD-ROMs that might never get converted just like there are movies on VHS, that haven't made it to DVD and might not get to Blu-Ray. For more than almost anyone wants to know about the legacy conversion problems with government information on CD-Roms, try :Government Information in Legacy Formats: Scaling a Pilot Project to Enable Long-Term Access.

Here at OCL, we have started an archive project on our own history. It is very early days yet. The old paperscrapbooks are getting into proper archival boxes, etc. We're going to have to deal with the digital legacy formats of our history sooner or later. We have some slides but even if the slide projector still worked, how useful is that? We going to have to get a slide scanner attachment and hope .jpeg files will be useful for a very long time.

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I've often thought that if books were a new technology they'd get more respect as a format.

Complete forward and reverse compatibility: you can read books published hundreds of years ago. No worries about incompatible file formats for a specific reading device.

Ease of reproduction.

Low cost.

No batteries required or wireless Internet access.

You can write your own marginalia.

Lending them and not getting them back is less painful than losing a Kindle. (doesn't mean I don't want a Kindle, I do, I do, I do!)

Used book stores.

A book with an inscription can be a treasure for a very long time. I have books my grandmother inscribed to my mother when Mom was 10.

They can prop up an uneven table.

You can cut out the center and hide things inside. (I did this to the extra copy of Black Beauty my great aunt gave me when I was 9. I even lined the hole with white felt.)

Altered books make great art including a candy dish.