It’s easier to see the beauty of the photo above (my friend Henry’s sister) if you don’t know the back-story. The photo was salvaged from a house fire that destroyed thousands –a lifetime– of family pictures. Only fifty survived.
Henry has avoided photographing these images. Too depressing. But he’s gotten around to it, before they are completely gone.
If you have precious family photos sitting in shoe boxes, gathering dust… scan them. Or have them scanned. Put them on flicker. Or somewhere. But scatter them to the wind (with as much metadata as you put on board). That is the only way to save them.
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This is one of my pet projects at home. I can never seem to find time to work on it but looking at that picture I know I need to get in gear.
The picture of my dad in the Army in 1959 has seen bettter days.
Thanks for the reminder!
This is something that I have spent some time thinking about. We have a lot of data floating around us in physical documents. The urge is to preserve them digitally– but this introduces a new set of problems.
Namely, what happens when you trans-substantiate everything into a format that is interoperable for maybe ten years, before it is superseded by something that 1) does not interoperate with the old format you chose, and/or 2) is something so superior that everybody in the world abandons the old format, causing access to your old archive to become a colossal pain in the ass?
Continuous intervention by an intelligent agent (e.g. some kind of librarian) seems to be the only road to semi-permanence, and then it’s only as good as the dedicated effort of the archivist to continually make the stored information available in a contemporary format. Deep archiving of material, such that it could be buried in a box and read at the other side of somebody’s lifetime is a problem we have not solved at all. Take heed.
Andy:
I should clarify. I am not really after true permanence for my data (photos, video, audio, blog posts). My naive hope is that someone might see a bit of my data and save it. Or pass it on. Or just remember it or tell someone about it. And maybe that person does the same. Think of it as elders telling stories around the digital campfire. Or, romantic that you are, notes in bottles bobbing on an ocean of data.
Or perhaps the ones and zeros that raced thru the Net (from me to flickr) are still “out there” somewhere, for future archeologists to find.
Remember, the photos aren’t real. Just an expression of a moment or a feeling.
smays
PS: I have 2 zip drives and 40 zip disks for sale.
Very Halikaarnian of you, Fraa Mays.
Hi Steve. We met at Gnomedex and I’ve been following your blog in my Reader. I referenced this post on my site, where I teach and help Baby Boomers to “go digital.” Thanks for this great example of why this is so important.
http://www.rememembergranny.com