The following appeared in UNWIRE: http://www.unwire.org/unwire/current.asp#26985
Is this e-info dying a natural death.... thru inattention, thus relieving clogged info-highways, or is this a serious issue of non-archiving of essential knowledge? TECHNOLOGY: Digital Information Is Vanishing, Warns UNESCO Knowledge stored digitally, including important scientific and government information, is vanishing, and more could be lost if action is not taken to conserve it, UNESCO said yesterday. Some of the material in jeopardy exists only in digital form, meaning it could become impossible to consult unless the original or compatible hardware and software are also maintained. The U.N. agency cited the case of a neurobiologist seeking information from the Viking space probes, which were sent to Mars in the 1970s, who discovered the software used to read the 25-year-old computer tapes no longer existed and that "the programmers who knew it had died." UNESCO also warned information contained on private and public Web sites could be lost, as the sites are often changed without saving the previous data. It said the White House Web site was wiped clean after President Bill Clinton left office and that its nonarchived Internet links are now gone. The United Nations began consultations on methods to safeguard such information after member states called for rapid action on the issue last month (U.N. release, June 11). ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, an NGO that is a GKP member*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
