>Issues of archival quality and protection

In our archival museum world, the word is to remember to remember that every
medium decays with time, so it is absolutely necessary to renew any storage
medium from time to time.   Magnetic tapes bleed, CDs use chemistry that
will decay, everything magnetic is vulnerable to distortion.   As you said,
Irene, multiple copies in multiple detached locations are essential, just as
with hard copy.   Good old B&W archivally processed is still hard to beat
along with CIBACHROME.

Knowing is one thing, doing is another.   I know of no museums that actually
are up to date with their digital restorative copy program.

The whole issue of digital archiving is another thing.   There is so much of
the stuff, easily sent to disk but not enough people to monitor and choose
what is worth keeping.   There was an interesting article about the National
Archives dealing with digital sources, stating that it is so many years
behind in just cataloguing the stuff, that much of it will already be
decayed before it is even catalogued.

cp watching out for sunspots in bc

"Conservation" = "The art of controlled decay."

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