Some of the question brought up has to do with digitizing and storage of
electronic files on CD. Most CD media has a shorter archival life than
reasonably stored Kodachromes. There is some debate now about the true
archival nature of what "optical media" (i.e. CD ROM) are made of,
especially those with aluminum innards. There is more debate about CD-R
versus WORM.
What bothers me even more are directory and file formats. The 1960 U.S.
Census was nearly lost in its entirety due to the technology for reading
the tapes sunsetting. I don't know the whole story, but apparently some
quick thinking and some real scrounging dredged up and patched up some tape
drives to read the tapes onto other media. File storage formats, data
compression techniques, and storage media change about as fast as we change
our socks. Even if a 5-1/4" CD survives 100 years, will anything be around
to read it? At least someone will be able to look at my Kodachromes, if
doing nothing else than holding it up to the light. It would take much
less work to create an optical system to do something with them, than to
try to create a CD ROM drive that hasn't been manufactured for 150 years,
and then try to decipher the directory and file formats. A positive image
on a transparency is pretty obvious that it's an image (photograph). Take
the label off of a CD and try to figure out what it is just by looking at
the CD. Is it photographs, Grandma Mabel's favorite cookie recipes, or
instructions for how to build your very own atomic bomb?
Sorry about the ranting. I've run into archival issues with just digital
storage of text documentation at work. Disks from 10-15 years ago can no
longer be read, not because the media broke down, but because the operating
systems and drives no longer exist! I'm not ready to give up film yet.
-- John
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