I chased this issue up last year with various archival authorities. These
seem to be the issues

1) The paper on which the image is printed is usually not archivally stable
and the image will fade.

2) The original image is likely to be in a format whose source code is not
in the public domain and therefore may disappear or be lost over the next 20
years. There are major problems for archives in simply upgrading all the
electronic documents and images they have to the current readable
format.Most archives convert text to PDF format whose source code is in the
public domain and can be reconstructed in the future. However most archives
are unclear about which format digital images should be in.

3) Storage of the image on a CD has not been proven to be of archival
quality as some CD's are known to loose their coating over time. Whether
this is a problem or not is difficult to tell as CD's have not been around
long enough to tell.

4) CD's are theoretically going to be replaced by DVD which has its own
problems especially singe DVD images can only be read in the zone they are
created in. The DVD makers won't allow a DVD to be made in the USA to be
imported to Australia and read on a DVD player there. So much for the
freedom  of the Internet!

Iain Stuart
Principal, Archaeology and Heritage Management
HLA-Envirosciences Pty. Ltd.


-----Original Message-----
From: SouthArc [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 9:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: digital cameras


Question on the digital cameras--or rather, their prints.  We recently
discussed using digital cameras for architectural documentation and were
told that the prints would probably not be considered archival quality (a
requirement for state site forms here).  Does anyone know anything about
this or how to address the problem?

                                Lucy Wayne