How technology is destroying history
By Dave Parrack
We all love how computers and the Internet have made life easier, right? But there could be a hidden cost to this new easy storage, easy-to-share, mass media age: the destruction of history in the making.
The human race has for a long time loved to keep records. In ancient times, even before paper was invented, information was recorded via stone tablets or papyrus scrolls. Much of this documented evidence of former times still exists in museums and libraries, offering researchers and historians a wealth of readily-available knowledge of the past.
The year 1086 saw the Domesday Book written on sheepskin, and the record of each and every person in England is still accessible to this day. Because a hard copy was written, and then kept in excellent condition through the years, we have a recorded history dating back almost 1,000 years.
To the present day, and we could have a problem. As Lynne Brindley, the chief executive of the British Library tells The Guardian, the move to digital over physical media could spell disaster for future historians. Unless something is done to preserve current history, future generations could look back on us as ‘The Digital Dark Ages’.
The evidence for this possible future is already with us. How many people now take digital photos, transfer them to their computer’s hard drive, and then do nothing with them? And what happens when that hard drive fails or the photos are inadvertently wiped? Even if the digital copies are retained for years to come, what guarantee do we have that future generations will still be using technology capable of restoring or viewing those images?
A good example of this is the BBC’s Doomsday Project in 1986, which was intended to repeat the efforts of the Domesday Book for the modern world. Unfortunately, the now obsolete videodisk was chosen as the medium for storing the information, and it took a team of specialists to recover the data.
Web sites are also a huge problem. While the number of domains, and sheer weight of data on the Web is forever growing, many sites only survive short-term. A Web site can be set up to cover a particular event and once that event is over, disappears into the ether. With no-one tracking and preserving the content contained on that site, it’s forever lost to future generations.
Libraries and governments have a duty to capture important information for posterity. But they need to do it without infringing on people’s rights to privacy. It’s a complex juggling act that needs managing successfully lest we become the generation that time forgets.
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January 30th, 2009
That bit about the BBC’s Doomsday Project in 1986 is sobering. And that’s just over 20 years ago. Imagine the poor sods in 2109 trying to recover data from seized up hard disks and damaged DVDs.
January 30th, 2009
It is difficult for me to hold back when I start on this. Most of the stuff was recovered by two dedicated techies. But if you ask about a famous show like ‘Peter and Dud’. When the BBC wiped the tapes clean as being of no further user. And this sort of idiocy is still happening to this day. It is a subject of which I frequently get irrational.
February 1st, 2009
Have been thinking on this for some time.. Behind the scenes, I’m actively working on ramping up the amount, quality, and type of information I will provide on one of my own personal websites..
Reality hit maybe a year or so ago about the reasonably projected longevity of that work, though.. It depends directly on mine.. So.. One of the things I fully plan on doing is accommodating for it in my “will”..
That doesn’t ease the worry, though.. Say I do find someone willing to graciously take it and run with it upon my passing.. What happens to my precious baby website when that person then inevitably passes…..
Hm. :)