Abstract
Preservation of media content is increasingly problematic with the rise of digital media. While it seems that we can backup everything in clouds, on USB sticks or external hard drives, the heart of the matter is that digital content degrades. Whereas non-digital media such as paper degrade slowly, a single corrupted bit can irrevocably harm a digital file. Digital media are thus on constant life-support. This paper is meant as an thought exercise to chart possible problems that future scholars might encounter when scavenging the digital archives. In particular, a number of hindrances are discussed: the lack of central institutions that take on the task of archiving content, inadequate modes of archiving, obsolescence, instability, and the compromise of the digital artifact’s integrity. It seems that the future of preserving our contemporary cultural artifacts is rather bleak, yet some preservation strategies may give a ray of hope.
Highlights
With the various options we have to save our documents on clouds, external hard drives, USBsticks, and so on, the preservation of media content seems easier than ever
The same digital media has a frustrating ephemerality, which contrasts with this trust in the permanence of our data: who amongst us has not experienced the agony of losing work because they forgot to save the document; or perhaps lost vital information because of a corrupted file? It seems, that there is more to our ‘permanent’ file-storage meets the eye, for behind its ‘enduring’ appearance lurks a volatile nature
Some preservation techniques may even compromise integrity (Harvey 2012, 54). This is why UNESCO (2003, 14) believes it is vital that the documentation about the artifact, that is, the digital material, is vital
Summary
With the various options we have to save our documents on clouds, external hard drives, USBsticks, and so on, the preservation of media content seems easier than ever. It would seem that laborious journeys, such as that of Poggio Bracciolini, a scholar who discovered the last remaining copy of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura in a monastery library in 1417, are a thing of the past. Poggio’s journey, which is vividly described in The Swerve (Greenblatt 2011), seems to have become unnecessary in our contemporary society. The same digital media has a frustrating ephemerality, which contrasts with this trust in the permanence of our data: who amongst us has not experienced the agony of losing work because they forgot to save the document; or perhaps lost vital information because of a corrupted file?
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