Yes and again something I wonder about, there is an argument for hard copies. The newspapers are a wonderful resource and I am involved with Ballarat Society and we have just gained some funds to digitise the early ballarat Papers, at this stage only 6 years but looking for more funding and donations for this, these are to go on line on the NLA site. We all know how newspapers get when they are old and not a practical way to look at the hard copies. We need to keep up with updating and finding the best possible preservation. I am always interested in these dicussions, there is no arguments when it comes to a lifetime of preservation, except maybe the formats. Carmel -----Original Message----- From: australia-cemeteries-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:australia-cemeteries-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Kerry Raymond Sent: Tuesday, 9 November, 2010 12:52 PM To: australia-cemeteries@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [AUSTRALIA-CEMETERIES] Local History Grants Program Carmel Personally I think the best solution for longevity of family history research and associated resources like cemetery photos etc lies with our national and state institutions: the libraries, archives, museums and galleries. Each of these has a charter or mandate to collect and preserve various kinds of material related to Australia or their particular state. While the precise details of their charter and current collecting policies do vary, nonetheless they do take these responsibilities very seriously, and they do receive ongoing funding from the state and federal governments to do so. I think material deposited with them has the best chance of surviving for another century, better than family history societies (many of whom are challenged by declining income due to declining memberships in a world of WWW-accessible genealogical resources and online competitors such as Ancestry). However, our national and state institutions face a number of challenges. They have put a lot of effort into physical preservation of paper-based materials (mostly the libraries and archives) and actual objects (mostly the museums and galleries) as that was what was needed in the past. Now with the digital era, they are faced with the issue (and in particular the costs) of trying to digitize existing material. Many of us are enjoying the benefits of the libraries of Australia who paid to digitize some of our major historic newspapers -- see here if you haven't had the pleasure: http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ and would probably agree with me that the unleashed potential of digitized resources like these newspapers is absolutely enormous. The other challenge is how to best collect and preserve born-digital material (that is, material that started its life in digital form, e.g. a Word document, or a photo taken on a digital camera). Firstly there is an enormous amount of digital material being generated. For example, when publishing your family history meant writing a large book and printing a run of 500 books, only a few of us did it. Now we can all generate loads of reports straight out of our family tree software and put them up on WWW sites or uploading a GEDCOM onto WorldConnect or Ancestry and many more of us are doing that than publishing books, so there is now a lot more family history published, most of it "born digital". The problem with born-digital material is its limited lifetime. This often surprises people, but digital material is always held in a file format (e.g. a Word document for text, a JPG file for a photo, an MP3 file for music). But the lifetime of file formats is relatively short, say 10 or so years, before it is superseded by a new and improved format. Many of us will have some documents written in early word processors that we cannot now read. Similar remarks apply to the physical storage of digital information. Does anyone have a 5-and-a-quarter-inch floppy drive on their computer any more? How much longer will computers have USB ports and DVD drives? Technological change means that born-digital materials must be constantly translated into new file formats and onto new physical media in order to survive into the future. There is a cost to doing this and some of those translations can lose information (I am sure many of you will have seen your GEDCOM files "lose information" when importing into someone else's software). So, to answer your question, yes, I am talking with national and state institutions about these issues (although in the broader context, not just for family history and cemetery photos). If you are interested to see the organizations who are part of these discussions (a series of workshops I am running across a number of capital cities over the past few months), see here: http://www.crc-glam.net/organisations Part of those discussions includes collecting materials creating by the public, but again the costs of storage and the digitizing/translation costs for that material have to be found "somewhere". Kerry ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to AUSTRALIA-CEMETERIES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Years ago the powers that be in the computer world realised that in years to come all the documents being created then wouldn't be able to be read by anyone in the future. The search was on for a universal format for documents, one that would last. They came up with the "Open Document Format" (ODF). This format is used pretty widely around the world now, Microsoft switched to it in Office 2007. Microsoft at the time promised to use the same type of HTML for the Internet as the rest of the world but we're still waiting. Google "Open Document Format" for further information. Preservation of cemetery records has my interest. Cemeterys, unless closed are developing things, always being added to and graually changing. Oakleigh is gradually disappearing, Cheltenham Old is going. St Kilda is heavily vandalised. I'm not too sure that we would want to keep a cemetery record for a 100 years, I'm of the mind they should be up-dated now and again. I notice the State Library of Victoria has several cemetery records on computer in their genealogy section, it might be an idea to lodge copies of your work with them if you're in Victoria. This is what I'm thinking of doing but while it does preserve them it's not getting them out in the wild to reseachers. Next time I go to the Mormon Library (Latter Day Saints) I'll have a talk to them about preservation of cemetery records but I don't think they believe in dying. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carmel M Reynen" <fcfibre2@bigpond.com> To: <kraymond@iprimus.com.au>; <australia-cemeteries@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2010 11:04 PM Subject: Re: [AUSTRALIA-CEMETERIES] Local History Grants Program > Yes and again something I wonder about, there is an argument for hard > copies. The newspapers are a wonderful resource and I am involved with > Ballarat Society and we have just gained some funds to digitise the early > ballarat Papers, at this stage only 6 years but looking for more funding > and > donations for this, these are to go on line on the NLA site. We all know > how > newspapers get when they are old and not a practical way to look at the > hard > copies. > We need to keep up with updating and finding the best possible > preservation. > I am always interested in these dicussions, there is no arguments when it > comes to a lifetime of preservation, except maybe the formats. > > Carmel > > -----Original Message----- > From: australia-cemeteries-bounces@rootsweb.com > [mailto:australia-cemeteries-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Kerry > Raymond > Sent: Tuesday, 9 November, 2010 12:52 PM > To: australia-cemeteries@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [AUSTRALIA-CEMETERIES] Local History Grants Program > > > Carmel > > Personally I think the best solution for longevity of family history > research and associated resources like cemetery photos etc lies with our > national and state institutions: the libraries, archives, museums and > galleries. Each of these has a charter or mandate to collect and preserve > various kinds of material related to Australia or their particular state. > While the precise details of their charter and current collecting policies > do vary, nonetheless they do take these responsibilities very seriously, > and > they do receive ongoing funding from the state and federal governments to > do > so. I think material deposited with them has the best chance of surviving > for another century, better than family history societies (many of whom > are > challenged by declining income due to declining memberships in a world of > WWW-accessible genealogical resources and online competitors such as > Ancestry). > > However, our national and state institutions face a number of challenges. > They have put a lot of effort into physical preservation of paper-based > materials (mostly the libraries and archives) and actual objects (mostly > the > museums and galleries) as that was what was needed in the past. Now with > the > digital era, they are faced with the issue (and in particular the costs) > of > trying to digitize existing material. Many of us are enjoying the benefits > of the libraries of Australia who paid to digitize some of our major > historic newspapers -- see here if you haven't had the pleasure: > > http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ > > and would probably agree with me that the unleashed potential of digitized > resources like these newspapers is absolutely enormous. > > The other challenge is how to best collect and preserve born-digital > material (that is, material that started its life in digital form, e.g. a > Word document, or a photo taken on a digital camera). Firstly there is an > enormous amount of digital material being generated. For example, when > publishing your family history meant writing a large book and printing a > run > of 500 books, only a few of us did it. Now we can all generate loads of > reports straight out of our family tree software and put them up on WWW > sites or uploading a GEDCOM onto WorldConnect or Ancestry and many more of > us are doing that than publishing books, so there is now a lot more family > history published, most of it "born digital". > > The problem with born-digital material is its limited lifetime. This often > surprises people, but digital material is always held in a file format > (e.g. > a Word document for text, a JPG file for a photo, an MP3 file for music). > But the lifetime of file formats is relatively short, say 10 or so years, > before it is superseded by a new and improved format. Many of us will have > some documents written in early word processors that we cannot now read. > Similar remarks apply to the physical storage of digital information. Does > anyone have a 5-and-a-quarter-inch floppy drive on their computer any > more? > How much longer will computers have USB ports and DVD drives? > Technological > change means that born-digital materials must be constantly translated > into > new file formats and onto new physical media in order to survive into the > future. There is a cost to doing this and some of those translations can > lose information (I am sure many of you will have seen your GEDCOM files > "lose information" when importing into someone else's software). > > So, to answer your question, yes, I am talking with national and state > institutions about these issues (although in the broader context, not just > for family history and cemetery photos). If you are interested to see the > organizations who are part of these discussions (a series of workshops I > am > running across a number of capital cities over the past few months), see > here: > > http://www.crc-glam.net/organisations > > Part of those discussions includes collecting materials creating by the > public, but again the costs of storage and the digitizing/translation > costs > for that material have to be found "somewhere". > > Kerry > > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > AUSTRALIA-CEMETERIES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > AUSTRALIA-CEMETERIES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message