Unlike some I do listen to the archivists especially those who are dealing
with this problem on a daily basis. I have been told of one commission of
inquiry simply handing their computers over to the archives for them to
archive. The problem as has been mentioned is not the short life of CD’s and
DVD’s but the propriety formats of Word …etc. I noticed that MS introduced
an entirely new format for its Office programs running under Vista so that
there was the usual compatibility problems with those using the 2003
version.
My reading is that the archivists were advocating PDFing everything as PDF
is an open-source program whose code is known.
Of course every document that dies or is destroyed is one more reason for
doing archaeology in the future!!
yours
Dr Iain Stuart
Partner
JCIS Consultants
ABN 15 673 291 522
PO Box 2397
Burwood North
NSW 2134
Ph/Fax (02) 9701 0191
(0413) 380116
HYPERLINK "mailto:[log in to unmask]"[log in to unmask]
Our website is HYPERLINK "http://www.jcis.net.au"www.jcis.net.au
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