Re: [ARSCLIST] Mass Digitization

["Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karl Miller" <karl.miller@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>   I would wager that the laws of physics tell us that we can't keep up with
it. So the question is, what do we do? What are our preservation priorities?
>
Sadly, our "preservation priorities" are all too often determined in
the past tense! The interested parties in 2050 can tell is exactly what
we SHOULD have preserved in 2007 while archiving material from then-
past decades...but we have no way of reliably predicting, let alone
knowing, what that list would include!

I have seen all too many examples where a private archive, probably
created/accumulated by an "obsessive/compulsive" who barely escaped
institutionalization, has become a valuable and regularly-used
facility.

Being an obsessive/compulsive myself, I tend to lean toward the idea
of "save it all and let our descendants discard what they don't want/
need...!" Fortunately, the increasing size of "all" hasn't totally
kept pace with the increasing capability of digital hardware...
UNfortunately, there still remains a single step which seems to
require human participation! The data HAS to be entered...

Steven C. Barr