Black and white glass neg.s look great from last century.  Estimations of
digital degradation are ten percent per annum.  My color 35mm slides on
kodak 25 asa from 1967 look great, so too the agfa and the Tri X pan from
early sixties.  Let's hear it for silver....
Best,
Leland

-----Original Message-----
From: david west <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
<[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sunday, April 11, 1999 4:55 AM
Subject: E-info Preservation -Reply


Whilst I have no doubt that we will lose much of the information stored
electronically, I wonder whether it is really any different for information
stored in any other format.

I frequently investigate problems with buildings built within the past ten
years where nobody can find any of the documents associated with the
production of the building elements, be it a specification, architectural
drawings, shop drawings or even a maintenance manual outlining the nature of
the particular building element.

Similarly, I am often flabbergasted by the lack of research to establish
what has worked in the past ... and so architects and builders frequently
try to reinvent the flashing, often unsuccessfully.

On a personal level, I have boxes of photocopies of useful references ...
but frequently fail to refer to them because I don't remember that I have
them.  Unless I spend a significant amount of time cataloguing every piece
of information I acquire, I will always fail to remember it all when I need
it.

I suspect that we will lose all but a small percentage of the electronic
information we create ... just like we have lost all but a small percentage
of much of the rest of the information which has been created this century.
Just because documents may be stored in a library or archive somewhere
doesn't mean that they are still accessible to us if we do not know they are
there.

So, does it really matter?

david