Preservation Issues

Preservation of document, pictures, recordings, digital content, etc., is a major aspect of Archival Science . It is also an important consideration for people who are creating Time Capsule s, Family History , Historical Documents , Scrapbook s and family trees. Common storage media are not permanent, and there are few reliable methods of preserving documents and pictures for the future.

PAPER/PRINTS

Color Negatives and ordinary color Prints fade away to nothing in a relatively short period. This happens even if the negatives and prints are kept in the dark. Because Color Processing results in a less stable image than traditional Black-and-white processing, pictures from the 1920s are more likely to survive into the long term future than those from the last 20 or 30 years. The cause of this is the use of inferior Photo Paper and ink, and the increasing use of Digital Image s and Digital Camera s.

Color prints made on most Inkjet Printer s look very good at first but they have a very short lifespan, measured in months rather than in years. Even prints from commercial photo labs will start to fade in a matter of years.

DIGITAL IMAGES

Digital storage media such as Zip Disk s, CD s, or DVD s last only a definite period before the medium begins to degrade. In addition, most experts estimate that, considering the current rate of technological progression, today's media will most likely be unreadable by computers 10 or 20 years from now. Thus, digital images must be transferred to a more reliable medium in order to be preserved.

MAGNETIC MEDIA, VIDEOCASSETTES, TAPES, HARD DRIVES

As with CDs and computer hard drives, Audio and Videotape s will not last. Magnetic Media have a very limited life span.

Audio and video tapes require specific care and handling to ensure that the recorded information will be preserved. Special storage environments are necessary to ensure that the recorded information is preserved for longer than 10 years. For information that must be preserved indefinitely, periodic transcription from old media to new is necessary, not only because the media are unstable, but also because the recording technology will become obsolete.

The magnitude of the problem of magnetic tape deterioration is just starting to be realized. Virtually all of the magnetic tape ever recorded older than as little as 10 years may be in serious jeopardy. The threat comes from several sources, but the largest threat is chemical in nature, coming from the breakdown of the Binder , or glue, that holds the magnetic particles to the polyester base of tape. As this occurs, the tape often gets coated with a tenacious adhesive that makes it extremely difficult to play. In some cases the problem can be so severe that the magnetic material literally falls off or sheds from the base leaving a pile of dust and clear backing. This problem has been known for some time, but the extent of both the problem and catastrophic effect it has on magnetic media is just now reaching widespread public visibility. It is also common for computer floppy disks to degrade over time, as the lubricants inside of the plastic jackets of many older floppies promote the decay of the magnetic medium. Also, the alignment of the magnetic particles of the disk substrate also becomes degraded over time, leading to a virtually irreversable loss of formatting and data. This development places the entire history of the technological revolution in severe jeopardy, as virtually all data from the early 1980s to the mid 1990s was stored on magnetic floppy media. Early laserdisk media was prone to degradation, as the layers of the disk substrate were bonded with an adhesive that was vulnerable to decay, and would crumble over time. This would lead the different layers of the disk to peel apart, damaging the pitted data surface, and rendering the disk unreadable.

At risk is virtually the entire inventory of recorded media, from Master audio recordings of symphonies to videotape recordings of the news gathered over the last 40 years. Virtually our entire audio and visual Heritage from the 1940s to 2000 is in serious jeopardy. Multiple threats exist, from accidental erasure and physical loss due to disasters such as fire and flood, to the slow disappearance of the machines that are required to play the tapes back. Even though the vast inventory of tapes are of little value as they are copies of other materials, many others are masters that cannot readily be duplicated.

EXTERNAL LINKS

Tech Guide: Storage media lifespans

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Preservation Issues