| Abstract: | CONCLUSION. I believe we have made great progress, but we are still presented with some unresolved issues. We have solved the short-term hardware obsolesce problem by keeping a track of the hardware we need to keep for a time after it has passed out of general use, and by "in-time transfer" of data to currently supported hardware. We have largely solved the media instability problem by transferring data to more stable carriers, which we can do without affecting the data content at all. We have solved the problem of Internet instability by archiving publications in projects such as PANDORA. I believe we have also solved a lot of the organizational commitment problem by strongly asserting the role of libraries, especially deposit libraries which should have a much better chance of maintaining commitment and resources than would other players. And we are even coming to grips with the requirements for handling "upgradable" formats, where we can create homogenous bodies of data that can be migrated in bulk, or efficiently accessed by emulation programmes. I am not saying that all the problems have been solved on those issues and we have some ' way to go in proving we can manage all of them - but at least the basic concepts are in place. What we are still grappling with is the issue of software dependency, especially where publications use a customized version of software, or software that may be less widespread. For this we need good solid research that will show us what is possible. But I am hopeful. At least we no longer believe we can leave it to someone else, saying it's not our business, or hoping it will just happen. |
|---|
