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Rank: Newbie
Joined: 7/16/2010
Posts: 3
Points: 9
Location: United States
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I feel that the management of electronic records is a subject of ever increasing importance especially in light of the current age of information explosion. We are all overwhelmed with information but is there any rhyme or reason to how this information in its various electronic formats is being managed and how will future generations view us if what we leave behind is beyond recovery, and what is recoverable is very suspect.
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 2/13/2010
Posts: 3,098
Points: 9,315
Location: United States
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Parchment, books, papers are slowly rotting in place on shelves. Any effort to preserve these physical records is puny compared to the need.
In the meantime, nearly all of our historical, personal, business records are recorded in binary.
I'm rather queasy about this arrangement.
Increasingly we know more, but the record of such is more and more ephemeral. The ancients knew this. The Egyptians worshipped the written thought. Hyroglyphs adorn their temples. The Mesopotamians baked their cuneiform into clay tablets. They instinctively knew that we need physical records to ensure that recorded knowledge will be available to suceeding generations. Can we say the same?
"Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless, and do no wrong". (Knight's Oath, Kingdom of Heaven)
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 6/30/2010
Posts: 5,721
Points: 17,102
Location: Canada
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The irony of our ephemeral, momentary electronic angst on this subject is inescapable. When archaeologists unearth this post 28 hours in the future, what will they deduce about the society that produced it?
Sanity is not statistical
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Rank: Newbie
Joined: 7/16/2010
Posts: 3
Points: 9
Location: United States
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Electronic Records Management is not something that is not welcomed by most organizations. The process will require anything but simple solutions, but it must be done and I am curious to see if and how it is being done in this community.
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 4/4/2010
Posts: 61
Points: 204
Location: United States
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I think there are enough nodes now that anything that has been put online has been backed up in multiple location, and anything in removable media can be recovered if someone wants it bad enough. For example 50 years from now an archeologist finds some of the old 5-3/4 inch floppy discs and wants to read them. He goes to one of the old online archive and finds the patent for a drive including machinist drawings, then does the same thing for the motherboard, CPU, etc., until he has all the information he needs to have a vintage PC built to read them.
Alternatively, by that time, just knowing how they were coded, they may be able to scan them sitting on the table and translate what is on them.
Bill.
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Rank: Newbie
Joined: 7/16/2010
Posts: 3
Points: 9
Location: United States
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I am encouraged that there was some activity surrounding this subject of electronic records management! So what is electronic records management? It is the management of electronic record content from creation to final disposition. That is a hefty definition, but I will let it stew and get back to it later!
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 2,118
Points: 6,361
Location: United States, FL
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chapkenmat wrote:Electronic Records Management is not something that is not welcomed by most organizations. The process will require anything but simple solutions, but it must be done and I am curious to see if and how it is being done in this community. From a certain perspective, I am not so certain that it must be done at all. Most of the information itself is ephemeral and nearly meaningless outside of its original context. Sure, for historical reasons, some persons and institutions would like to be assured that their archives are more or less permanent, yet how much of that will really be valid or even relevant in the future? Compared to the persons and processes that generated them, most data are just so much detritus. Anyone who values some information has either made duplicates in at least three locations and different formats or they have already lost it.
"Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits." - Satchel Paige
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 9/19/2011
Posts: 757
Points: 2,270
Location: United States
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chapkenmat wrote:Electronic Records Management is not something that is not welcomed by most organizations. The process will require anything but simple solutions, but it must be done and I am curious to see if and how it is being done in this community.
You mean there must be a record kept of all the scribbling done here on TFD? Oh, my!
I would think most folks would assume that technology would be important to archive, but the ramblings of us commoners? Surely not!
Although, it was interesting to hear about the things written by ancient Egyptian workers while building the pyramids. In particular, the young man who liked to peep through his neighbors windows, or the fellow who would come home drunk late at night.
Also, the graffiti written by the ancient Greeks and Romans was interesting in that we see how humanity hasn't improved one whit over several millennia. Perhaps it is not such a bad idea to preserve all the things we write here.
After all, several millennia hence, despite the technical advances that may be made in the future, those humans will see that they are still as foolish as we.
A great many people will think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. ~ William James ~
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 9/12/2011
Posts: 2,206
Points: 6,646
Location: Scotland (via Earth, Sol system)
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Oy! You! What you calling scribblings Huh? Oi fink der peepul of der footcher will need wot we say to edumucate them in wot we no! So there!  I've heard of archival projects using DVDs made of gold and glass (rather than aluminium and plastic), and etched steel books stored in Nitrogen or vacuum. However it does need a lot of planning - such as including in the archive a machine to read the DVDs which is either self-powered (?) or can accept any form of power supply. Even then, one has to hope that the language does not change too much.
Though lovers be lost, love shall not, and Death shall have no dominion. - Dylan Thomas
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