The secret is redundancy. No place is safe. Lots of irreplaceable  
archives are lost to fires, floods, mudslides, volcanoes, etc every  
year. My brother makes his living recovering and remastering material  
for the big movie studios, TV networks, and lots of other  
organizations. You have watched or listened to many of the results of  
his ability to recover data. Many of his clients will not allow him  
to say that he has worked for them. All of them thought their  
archives were securely stored.

He recommends putting digital data on hard drives, making copies and  
periodically (generally this is every three years) doing it all over  
again.

On Apr 27, 2006, at 12:47, Boyer, Jeffrey, DCA wrote:

> The ongoing stream of messages about archiving digital data  
> includes a couple of responses about keeping hard copies in order  
> to outlive the vicissitudes of digital technology.  With that in  
> mind, I am forwarding to histarch (read below my "signature") a  
> poignant and hard-learned lesson about hard copies. Clearly,  
> diligence is primary.
>
> Jeff
>
> Jeffrey L. Boyer, RPA
> Project Director
> Office of Archaeological Studies
> mail: P.O. Box 2087, Santa Fe, New Mexico  87504
> physical: 407 Galisteo Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico  87501
> tel: 505.827.6343          fax: 505.827.3904
> e-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
> "It might look a bit messy now, but just you come back in 500 years  
> time."  --Terry Pratchett
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: NMAC-L on behalf of Turnbow, Chris, DCA
> Sent: Thu 4/20/2006 12:52 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Sad News about Mera's Collections