Picture this: 1
I have a cup of coffee. I write a message on the froth, by sprinkling cocoa powder in a pattern which spells some words. Even though I know the likely lifetime of this record will be just five minutes, I take the cup of coffee to the archive. I tell the staff to preserve my cup of coffee forever, because it might be needed 100 years from now for legal reasons. I tell them they must preserve the full functionality of the message in the coffee: its look and feel, its taste, its warmth, and the wording on top.
Picture this: 2
I am walking along the beach. I write a message in the wet sand with my toes. Even though I know the lifetime of this record will be a few days at most, I dig the sand carefully out from the beach, and carry it the archive. I tell the staff to preserve my sand forever, because it might be needed 100 years from now for legal reasons. I tell them they must preserve the full functionality of the message in the sand: its look and feel, the sound of the waves, the glint of the afternoon sunshine on the grains.
Picture this: 3
I am reading a cheap tabloid newspaper, printed on highly acidic pulp. I write a message on the margin, with an old felt-tip pen. Even though I know the lifetime of the record will be a decade at most, I rip it from the newspaper and take it to the archive. I tell the staff to preserve my newspaper message forever, because it might be needed 100 years from now for legal reasons. I tell them to preserve the full functionality of the message: its look and feel, the clarity of the felt-tip ink, the pure whiteness of the paper itself.
Picture this: 4
I am sitting at a computer. I write a message using a proprietary, closed format word processing program. Even though I know the lifetime of this record will be only a decade or two at most, I email it to the archive. I tell the staff there to preserve my electronic document forever, because it might be needed 100 years from now for legal reasons. I tell them they must preserve the full functionality of the message: its look and feel, its behavior, its working hyperlinks, its hidden structure.
Alans notes and thoughts on digital preservation 
2 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 5, 2008 at 10:27 am
Sous la poussière
Records management, digital preservation, and so on: it’s often difficult to convince records creators and to promote best practices.
Such pictures are very useful to our evangelizing task, thank you 🙂
February 6, 2008 at 11:59 am
alanake
I am still amazed at the lack of concern record creators have. They know that the document they are creating might be needed decades off, yet they create it in a format which has no guarantee of lasting more than 5 years or so. It’s like writing a legal contract on paper which is timed to self-destruct after a decade. No one would accept that approach for paper, but because it’s “on a computer” it’s acceptable.