Kevin Waterson wrote:
What systems are available these days for archival storage of info. Optical storage is not really archival.
It depends on how far back you define archival. By my definition of archival there is no digital archival medium. Archival to me means being able to store information so that it is available to subsequent generations. Media for that include paper documents (on archival paper) , photographs (as black/white on silver or metal particle based film, not organic-dye colour film), and phonographs. No digital format today is known that will last that long. Neither the medium or the system that is needed to read it.
Microfich is really an analog storage system and data on microfich may last for some decades and maybe longer. At least it will be able to be read as all you need is a magnifying system.
Digital storage is realatively new. It is known that tape backups can last 20 years, but we don't know if they will last 50 years. All magnetic domains on mag media will eventually relax, especially as they were designed to be able to be read/written easily. So they won't last as long as paper or B/W film can. Optical storage systems should be able to do better but fungus attack and surface outgassing of oxygen will eventually convert the thin Al layer to transparent Al2O3. Also with any magnetic or optical system you also need the reader, and if the storage format is lost is more difficult again.
Basically looking back from the future our age will be an age that archivists may call "The information dark age" - not because we were un-enlightened but because the information never lasted.
Mike -- Michael Lake Chemistry, Materials & Forensic Science, UTS Ph: 9514 1724 Fx: 9514 1460
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