My position statement for the AISTI Emerging Research Summit workshop held on May 17, 2007, in Santa Fe, New Mexico:
You've probably heard of the adage "good, fast, cheap, pick any two" as applied to engineering and manufacturing. I believe we are in a similar situation with respect to long-term preservation of digital information. We would like to preserve information for a long period of time, 100 years or more; we would like to preserve lots of information, perhaps most of it; and we would like to do so cheaply. The adage for digital preservation might be stated: "longevity, scale, economy, pick any two."
Why is this the case? First, the size of the preservation problem is frighteningly large in every measurement dimension, whether counting bytes, providers, or information types. Second, if computer technology continues to evolve as it has in the past (and there is no reason to think that it won't), then digital information will continue to effectively degrade over time. But the effort required to preserve information does not grow linearly with the degradation: conversions upon conversions and emulations upon emulations encounter exponentially more problems and require exponentially more effort. Third, "preservation" rarely refers to just the avoidance of bit lossage; the term is inevitably encumbered with other desired features such as discoverability in contemporary search systems and direct usability by applications du jour. That is, "preservation" usually means that information is kept as usable in the future as it is today, a state that is increasingly difficult to maintain over time. And fourth, there are no funding structures in place to pay for information upkeep. A tax on current information providers seems unlikely to be broadly levied, and even then, such a tax doesn't cover the cost of keeping older information held in archives up-to-date.
So, if "longevity, scale, economy, pick any two" does indeed describe the problem of digital preservation... which two?
created 2007-05-17; last modified 2009-11-20 08:03