Digital records 'obscure the past'
Works like
the Gutenberg Bible can still be read
Digital
technology could result in the loss of priceless historical records,
explains Tad Piesakowski.
The
pace of technology is such that what was deemed cutting edge 15
years ago is generally considered obsolete today.
For households this has been evident in the steady migration from
analogue to digital: vinyl gave way to CDs, audio cassettes to
minidisks and video tapes to DVDs.
The television
industry is facing similar problems with an ongoing project to
transfer its archive footage from obsolete videotape to current
tape formats or even digitised.
When planning
Project Gutenberg, the internet archive of free electronic books,
its architect, Michael Hart, recognised the problem.
He warned: "Alice in Wonderland, the Bible, Shakespeare, the Koran and
many others will be with us as long as civilisation.
"An operating
system, a program, a mark-up system will not."
Consequently
he specifies the use of simple ASCII code to archive books and
documents because "it is the only text mode that is easy
on both the eyes and the computer."
Indecipherable
archive
An example
of the problem is the Digital Domesday Project.
Domesday Book of 1086 is in fine condition
The
original Domesday Book was written 925 years ago and is, for those
who can read Latin, still perfectly legible.
Its intended
digital successor, somewhat newer at 16 years old was, until this
week, largely indecipherable.
This was not
because the data had deteriorated, but the format chosen to record
it had long been abandoned and so consequently devices to read
it had disappeared as well.
Last month,
this issue of digital versus traditional archiving came to the
fore in the UK Parliament.
As part of
its continuing plans to modernise Westminster, the government
put forward a proposal to end the centuries-old tradition of recording
Acts of Parliament on vellum, commonly known as parchment.
Appropriate
parchment
The plan was
to replace them with CDs and archival paper. There were even rumours
that the Queen's speech, also recorded on vellum, was being considered
for transfer to a computer screen or autocue.
Yet despite
being previously approved by the House of Lords, MPs rejected
the proposal.
Labour's Brian
White MP led the opposition. Cynics could argue that with the
only UK firm still producing vellum in his constituency, he had
a vested interest in defeating this proposal.
However, as
a former computer systems analyst he acknowledged that there was
a place for modern technology to record acts of parliament, but
not as a replacement for traditional vellum.
Perhaps it
is with good reason that the paperless office promised by the
digital revolution has yet to materialise.
Digital archiving
seems set to remain a supplement rather than a substitute for
paper-held records for a while yet.
Article from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/