An enormous volume of information was created using proprietary software and data formats prior to the era of openness. Even when companies are still around, getting to that information can be difficult at best.
“We cannot afford to let digital assets being created today disappear. We need to make information created in the digital age to be as resilient as paper.”
Ms Ceeney said: “If you put paper on shelves, it’s pretty certain it is going to be there in a hundred years.
“If you stored something on a floppy disc just three or four years ago, you’d have a hard time finding a modern computer capable of opening it.
“Digital information is in fact inherently far more ephemeral than paper,” warned Ms Ceeney.
She added: “The pace of software and hardware developments means we are living in the world of a ticking time bomb when it comes to digital preservation.
BBC: Warning of Data Ticking Timebomb
Via SmartMobs: The Era of Sentient Things – The Looming of a digital dark age
I know I have dozens of 100M Zip disks and even some floppies that I keep saying I’m going to archive but it’s such a hassle.
