[AT] Digital Archiving

[Bob W]

Larry,

Just a simple question. Is tiff the best format for "archiving" digital
pictures?  This may have been already discussed but I missed it if it has
been.

Bob W

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Larry Goss
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 1:35 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] Digital Archiving

The maxim is: If it has been stored digitally, it hasn't been archived.

That used to be true, and if you consider standard archiving techniques, it
still is.  But when you consider the possibility of distributed storage of
multiple copies with purposeful media migration as a method of archiving,
then other techniques become possible and the "dangers" of electronic
storage are minimized.

This is not an easy paradigm shift for people to accept, and it opens up all
sorts of other questions that we don't want to have to deal with.  For
instance, the original document is going to eventually turn to dust
regardless of how you protect it and preserve it.  When that inevitable
deterioration happens, does that mean that you have to destroy all the
digital copies as though the original had never existed?  Archive
organizations and libraries are having a difficult time answering that
question.  All you have to do is look at the expense and efforts that are
being expended by Trinity College in Dublin to preserve and protect The Book
of Kells or by the various libraries that have original copies of Gutenberg
Bibles to see the extent organizations will go to.  But for 20 bucks I
purchased a CD that contains the whole Book of Kells plus videos showing its
history and the technology of illuminated manuscripts.  Would that digital
copy be subject to recall if the original Book of Kells became non-existent
for whatever reason?

To bring this discussion back to tractors, is it acceptable to generate a
restored tractor?  What percentage of original parts do you have to have
before you have to agree that is no longer the same tractor?

Larry