Stanley McManus wrote:
>
> <You can simply copy cd-roms every 15 years, if all
> <you do is store
> <images.
>
> That's the problem, it is NOT simple. It is time
> consuming, expensive and subject to various variables
> that most of us won't realize exist until we face the
> problem. For example, who decides what gets copied to
> the new medium and what doesn't. This gets very
> polical as the victor will, in effect, rewrite history.
>
Absolutely, it's really not THAT simple. Just to add to
your points, what to do in the, admittedly not likely,
case that your image on CD is actually faulty? To be
sure, you would have to store the images in a redundant
format that will let you correct small data errors.
And you would have to check all the images each time you
copy them. This IS time consuming.
All this is of course OFF TOPIC here on the list and
is regularly discussed on Usenet anyway. My own point
of view is, that a B&W neg, slide or print still has
the biggest chance to be viewed in a hundred years even
today. Think about it: A lot of the pictures that are
treasured today by archivers survived, although their
original owners just forgot about them for several
decades. They lived in a drawer, a box or whatever for
decades until someone dug them out, e.g. after the owner
had died. Digital data don't have a chance to survive
under conditions like that.
I'm participating in a project with some other local
photographers right now. We try to add to the
photographical material of our local (Stuttgart, Germany)
archive, recording buildings, people, fashion, parks etc
for generations to come. The archiver says she prefers
B&W, because of its better archival stability. She'll
take color and also digital data, but favors B&W. She
showed us some of the highlights in her archive. And
the quality of those old B&W prints, negs and even
glass plates is still great, although they haven't been
taken care of for the most time of their life. People
are just coming in at her office with those old treasures
they found in the loft of Grannies house. This won't work
with digital.
Thomas Bantel
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