In a message dated 4/2/2005 11:43:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, OHGALLIA-D-request@rootsweb.com writes: > I agree with the need to preserve your genealogy research in a form that > will > continue to be "readable" for the forseeable future. CD, DVD, and portable > > magnetic storage are all good state of the art techniques, but we also need > to > address the format those records are saved in. > ---------------------------------------------------------------- This brings up a good point. How long is the forseeable future? I have 8", 5 1/4" floppies and now they are not making drives for these disks. My latest computer, a Gateway, has no floppy disk drive at all. I have 7" & 10" reel to reel tapes but no tape player that will accept them. Lucky for me I rerecorded most of the material on newer formats that now can be carried forward, but again how long before I will have to do it all over again. CDs & DVDs are changing as well. We now have burners that can use the new double layer DVDs. As of now, the burners will read the older disks but for how long will they be backwards compatible? I think Dick Eastman is right when he says to plan on rerecording every five years if you want to have a player to read the data you have. The formats are indeed important to remember as they also keep changing. To sum it up us genealogist will have to keep informed about the new technology and rerecord before it's too late to do so. Progress is fine but it sure keeps us working hard to keep up with it. The Library of Congress found that most of the books and papers made with wood pulp are disintegrating on their shelves. They are busy replacing and copying but again what about compatibility? The only thing that has remained constant is paper files. But the paper we have been using (made from wood pulp) is not going to last. When I worked at the Government Printing Office we were instructed by the Library of Congress to print their material on 100% rag bond paper. The rag paper will last indefinitely and the ink used will also last for a long time. The rag bond paper is expensive but if you want the files to last then it is what must be used. Of course, how you store the files is also a problem. Every thing we use should be archival quality if the data is important. Tom Powell