[PADG:2171] Re: Permanence of web information

[Abbey Publications <abbeypub@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There is a good report of that Nature report in the Sept. 15 Science 
News, whicih says, in part, "In their quest for alternatives to 
silicon, chip manufacturers are increasingly turning their attention 
to plastic.  Low-cost, easily manufactured polymers that conduct 
electricity could revolutionize electronics, they say.  Now, 
researchers at Princeton University and Hewlett-Packard Laboratories 
in Palo Alto, Calif., have fabricated a polymer-based memory device 
for permanent data storage.

"In the new scheme, a single memory call consists of a layer of 
polymer sandwiched between a gold electrode and an aluminum one.  In 
the polymer's original state, positive charges carry current through 
the material.  To encode data in a cell, the researchers apply a 
voltage, which injects electrons into the polymer.  Positive charges 
from the gold electrode then flood the material to neutralize the 
electrons.

"The movement of charge, which occurs in about a microsecond, 
permanently switches the polymer from a conducting to a nonconducting 
state--or from a zero to a one, in computer terminology."  [Etc. - 
Read it yourself.  Toward the end of the report, an MIT chemist 
"cautions that because the underlying mechanism remains unclear, he's 
unconvinced that the voltage-induced switching is permanent."  But, 
it says, there is a world-wide effort to develop polymer memory 
devices for applications including rewritable chips, such as the 
short-term memory on a computer.]

Ellen McCrady



Nov. 23 Washington Post article about permanence of web information:

"On the Web, Research Work Proves Ephemeral; Electronic Archivists 
Are Playing Catch-Up in Trying to Keep Documents From Landing in 
History's Dustbin"

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8730-2003Nov23.html>
(short demographic survey required for access, it may also be 
available in LexisNexis)

"'I think of it like the library burning in Alexandria,' Dellavalle 
said, referring to the 48 B.C. sacking of the ancient world's 
greatest repository of knowledge. 'We've had all these hundreds of 
years of stuff available by interlibrary loan, but now things just a 
few years old are disappearing right under our noses really 
quickly.'"


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