Re: [AV Media Matters] Let's just get rid of tape and optical media entirely

[T& <traviswa@u.washington.edu>]

My apologies (as a lurker) for intruding.

Although I am an amateur archivist, my primary concern would be having
"all my eggs in one basket."  Although diversifying the location/site (as
mentioned in another response) is good, my primary concern would be EMP
(electromagenetic pulse), which would come from a nuclear/neutron blast
(intentional or not).  While this is (hopefully!) far-fetched, all
floppies, hard drives, and zip/jaz disks would be erased (or at least,
corrupted) by this -- as would audio tapes.  CD-Rs, CD-ROMs, and film
would not.

For this reason (as well as "gremlins with magnets"), I tend to dump as
much of my audio (hard drive, cassette, reel-to-reel) as I can to CD-R, as
a back-up.

				--Travis Anderson-Bond

<<snipped>>

>In essence - I am now thinking that in addition to a medialess archive - a
>concept that I introduced a long time ago - we need to think in other local
>storage directions too - and one of those thoughts was brought on by a
>comment Jim Wheeler made - as quoted below. Basically I wonder if we should
>just forget about Tape and optical media entirely for archival purposes and
>jump directly to hard drive server based systems. As time has gone on - my
>own answer to this question is, in general, yes, this is what we should be
>doing.

<<snipped>>

Moderators Comment:
There is always an "end game" scenario meaning that if there was a time
where there was a nuclear explosion, or a meteor hitting the earth or any
number of cataclysmic events that would cause humanity to cease to exist -
or largely cease to exist - then it is quite probable that a great deal of
cultural heritage on many levels would be lost. One of my favorite films is
Dr. Strangelove - and in the end of the film - the General who was played by
George C. Scott says "Mr. President we cannot have a mine shaft gap". The
same logic (or lack of logic) applies. It is not reasonable to think that
any archive or media contained within will survive any catastrophic loss of
this type. Geographic duplication which I do suggest as totally appropriate
and necessary (along with the "Medialess Archive" network topology are
partial solutions. One can clearly envision a situation where nothing
exists - alas realistically planning for this type of an event is an
activity that even the government has largely given up on.