In a message dated 5/29/03 7:01:19 AM Central Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: > Obsolescence could come sooner than one thinks. Archival plastic, tape, > and > acid free paper are probably best. Office supply houses carry such archival > > materials. Very true. I work for a county Archives. We microfilm collections such as this. Microfilm has a very long shelf life and it doesn't take a lot of know how to construct a viewer. Although space is a problem at this point we also keep the original record stored in an acid free environment. We also digitize records and store them on CD's but there are lots of questions among archivist as to the shelf life of CD's and when the equipment to read them might be phased out. Remember those big floppies that were used 10 or more years ago? I haven't seen a computer with a drive that could read those in ages. My sister recently purchased a new computer that does not have a floppy drive at all. It had a DVD drive and a CD writer.

Ever heard of data migration? As new media formats come available, the data should be copied to them. David [email protected] wrote: > > In a message dated 5/29/03 7:01:19 AM Central Daylight Time, > [email protected] writes: > > > Obsolescence could come sooner than one thinks. Archival plastic, tape, > > and > > acid free paper are probably best. Office supply houses carry such archival > > > > materials. > > Very true. I work for a county Archives. We microfilm collections such as > this. Microfilm has a very long shelf life and it doesn't take a lot of know > how to construct a viewer. Although space is a problem at this point we also > keep the original record stored in an acid free environment. > > We also digitize records and store them on CD's but there are lots of > questions among archivist as to the shelf life of CD's and when the equipment to read > them might be phased out. Remember those big floppies that were used 10 or > more years ago? I haven't seen a computer with a drive that could read those > in ages. My sister recently purchased a new computer that does not have a > floppy drive at all. It had a DVD drive and a CD writer. > > ==== VA-SOUTHSIDE Mailing List ==== > VAGenWeb http://www.rootsweb.com/~vagenweb > Please contact List Administrator if you experience problems > getting unsubscribed from this list. [email protected] > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237