Re: [ARSCLIST] Long-term/preservation audio

[Mwcpc6@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 7/4/2003 2:59:15 PM Eastern Standard Time, mrichter@xxxxxxx writes:

> Though a compilation of oddities is marketable and the
> scribblings of a child who becomes an author have historical interest, the
> hundreds of essays, tests and other papers generated annually by each of
> the tens of millions of American schoolchildren (not to add those in India,
> China and the rest of the world) are not worth preserving.
>
> It may be heresy to some, but I firmly believe that there are frames of
> home movies which should be scrapped, diaries which should be recycled, and
> audio recordings which should be allowed to expire gracefully.
>
>
> Mike
> mrichter@xxxxxxx


That is exactly my point.  ALL of the material I mentioned should have been, and mostly was, scrapped simply because there were literally tons of it and scrap metal was valuable.  But if there is no durable medium so that there can be accidental survival, there will be absolutely no record of the past beyond that which is part of the official database. 

At first, sound vanished as soon as it stopped reverberating in the air.  Then for a hundred years, it could be locked in physical media that could last forever. Now it is once again being reduced to transient waves; electrons circulating in cyberspace only as long as they are kept reflecting from surface to semiconducting surface. 

How is this to be managed?

Mike Csontos