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Volume CXXXIII, Number 19 |
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Archives in the now
NICHOLAS J. LoVECCHIO
ORIENT STAFF
It is perhaps an irony that currently in our "information age"
it is harder than ever to hold on to information. When we have a current
need for information, it's not so hard. But when it comes time to store
information for future access, that's when the problems start.
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| Nathaniel Hawthorne's notebooks from his time beneath the pines. (Henry Coppola, Bowdoin Orient) |
Institutions all over the world are currently dealing with the problem
of storing electronic records, now that so much material exists, in many
cases, only digitally. While electronic data has existed in various forms
for decades, the need for a new archiving technology became urgent only
within the past ten years or so. The need, which coincides, of course,
with the rise of the PC, email, and the web, is made pressing by a number
of factors: that the volume of coded information is so much higher than
before, that so much information exists only electronically with no paper
format, that electronic storage media do not last long, and that access
to electronic records is often lost as technologies advance and make others
obsolete.
The permanence of the storage media is a major concern: standard digital
storage media, at this point in time, simply doesn't last as long as paper.
Quality paper will last 500 years or more and microfilm 200 years or more.
Disks typically have a life of 2 to 5 years, though higher quality disks
might last 30 to 50 years. And whereas paper and microfilm show wear and
tear, signaling a potential information loss, digital storage media do
not. But even if the digital storage medium lasts, the hardware and software
that can read that information normally do not.
Despite that people are dealing with the question everywhere, there are
no formal or informal standards, and no sufficient technology, in place
at the current moment, which leaves individual institutions, like Bowdoin,
to fend somewhat for themselves.
According to many archivists, the best way to hold on to digital information
right now is still to print it out. Such is the advice of Richard Lindemann,
director of Special Collections and Archives, who noted that this issue
arose, at Bowdoin, only about three years ago. "Everybody in the
archival world is talking about this and nobody has an answer to it, and
that's pretty much where it sits," he said. "And so, we sort
of have to customize to our own local needs until there's a magic silver
bullet somewhere. My ultimate report to the powers that be at Bowdoin
is ultimately going to be: print it out whenever you can."
This is especially true for email retention. Special Collections and
Archives saves printed out emails, as it must preserve information, documents,
and artifacts that document the history of the College. Lindemann noted
that roughly three percent of an organization's documents are determined
to be of lasting value, and correspondence makes up a large chunk of those
documents. It's the responsibility of the department or organization to
produce and print this material, though. "It's the people who create
the documents that are responsible for maintaining them in a medium or
a way that preserves them." Lindemann and his staff, however, advise
others on how to do this.
But printing is not practical for everything. It's fairly easy for saving
email, but not for records management-for certain financial or personnel
files, for examples-which is in many cases legally mandated. A good deal
of records are entirely digital and have no paper equivalent. A number
of departments at Bowdoin already store old records electronically, such
as Human Resources and the Controller's Office.
Another issue is website storage. "I don't think anybody would be
able to fish up the first website for Bowdoin," Lindemann said. "We
know that it's archived…it's in the basement of Adams Hall somewhere."
But even if they found the specific tape that it was saved to, he said,
there's little guarantee that they could open the files. Website storage
is important not only for the College's websites, but also for recording
faculty's scholarship, which in many cases has moved online.
While there are some software programs that harvest websites (that is,
save the pages), most of these do not maintain any interconnectivity that
one page might have with other pages or files. So, what is saved is often
just a visual screen without complete text, formatting, or graphics. "At
this point the best we probably can do is set some sort of time schedule
and burn CDs with the various college websites," Lindemann said,
but he added that they have not done that yet. "Partly that's because
we're not sure that's what we want to do and partly that's because those
are getting saved and are archived in CIS for the short term. So we know
that time is a little on our side."
Meanwhile there is a lot of research and development being done to create
standardized and reliable means of retaining and accessing e-records.
The proposals for grants to research the subject have skyrocketed. One
big push is between the National Archives and the San Diego Supercomputer
Center. Together they are working on a program called Emulation, which
takes any type of software and any type of files and builds a new program
to work as though the files are running in that software, even though
that software isn't running it anymore.
Lindemann is charged with the task of writing up a preliminary electronic
records policy for Bowdoin, which he plans to complete sometime this spring.
He called it "a story that has no ending," given the uncertain
nature of e-record archiving, but he did say he sees some hope for the
future. "I think the problem has to be solved, not because of college
archives, but because of business requirements and national government
requirement." The federal government, for example, requires that
every federal agency save all emails-nothing can be deleted.
Lindemann said, "As we get more open code and more standard about
the way things should be saved, that's going to make things easier too."
And once usable fixes have been developed, archiving will be, in many
respects, easier: e-records demand considerably less-though not cheaper-storage
space, they are much easier to index, and they offer greater access to
everyone.
Where does Bowdoin stand in relation to the rest of the archiving world? According to Lindemann, "We are sensitive and prudent but not foolishly revolutionary. And that's a good place to be, I think."