Who can last for 100 years? — what does digitalisation of conservator work tell us

I was invited to dinner with a group of experienced professionals. There is a gentleman who works as a conservator in the Massachusetts court system. His main job was to restore, preserve and manage the state’s legal documents dated back to the 18th century. I asked, “Do you use cameras or scanners to digitise these materials?” After all, materials are different from artistic creations. The principal value is only the information, instead of the paper-based format. “Of course we did”, he said, “but we can’t solely rely on this.” He then told us a story that nearly 40 years ago, when the floppy disk was invented, some conservatory departments innovatively invested in this new technology and transferred important data to it. But it did not turn out well. On the one hand, it took years to complete the migration, but the floppy disk was soon replaced by the hard disk just a few decades later. To retrieve the original information stored on floppy disks, the conservators must go to the archive to borrow specific floppy disk readers that are no longer available in the market. On the other hand, reliance on digital storage technology reduced people’s attention to maintaining the paper originals. When many floppy disks were found malfunctioning, the original documents had already been damaged or lost over the years, and much information was lost. <a href="https://medium.com/@jody1999wxm/who-can-last-for-100-years-c3a783a3015e">Click Here</a>