(+) Digital Preservation for Genealogists

One of the more common arguments against saving things digitally is, “The required equipment to read it probably won't be available in 25 years. I am going to save everything on paper because I know that will still be readable forever.” Perhaps the time is 50 years or 100 years, but I hear similar comments frequently. Indeed, there is some truth to that argument but it is somewhat misleading. Still, there is a simple solution.

Experience over the years has proven that paper is not a good preservation mechanism, and microfilm isn't much better. The news reports frequently mention earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, building collapses, fires, and other disasters that have destroyed thousands of paper and microfilm documents within seconds. While not mentioned as often in the national news, burst water pipes will do the same.

For the past sixty years or so, microfilm was the storage mechanism of choice because it took up so little space, compared to paper. However, microfilm is almost as fragile as paper. Microfilm is only slightly more impervious to earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, fires, and burst water pipes. To be sure, water-soaked microfilm probably can be washed and then dried for preservation purposes, but the other disasters will destroy microfilm as quickly as paper or anything else.

Digital archiving has its own set of problems and solutions. Disk drives crash, home computers occasionally erase data, huge data centers are occasionally destroyed in major disasters, and sometimes files simply grow obsolete by a change in technical standards. The biggest cause of computer data loss is the "oops factor:" the accidental loss of files. Any single copy of any digital file is almost guaranteed to be unavailable within a few years.