I agree with Fred and Joseph on the need for a program to ensure the
storage media are refreshed regularly.  Joseph also touched on the
issue of, and need for, migration of content as well to ensure access
to it over time.  In a nutshell, there is little point refreshing your
storage media on a regular basis if a few years down the track you
can't read the documents/files stored on them (think about the
Wordstar 2000 files created back in the mid 1980's, and even earlier
versions of MS Word).  A plan to migrate the documents/files to more
accessible forms is essential, but what format/s?

The option most often recommended is to convert the content into a
common, 'open' format, a process known as normalisation.  The National
Archives of Australia has a useful tool for this called Xena.  Details
of Xena, and more information about normalisation, can be found at:

http://www.naa.gov.au/records-management/secure-and-store/e-preservation/at-NAA/software.aspx

According to that website, 'The process of normalising converts the
record from its original format into an open, standards-based format.
The normalised version is not considered to be an original copy of the
record as some information may be lost during the normalisation
process. However, the performance of the normalised object is the
closest to the original that is currently possible.'  So, expect some
loss through this process.

Other long-term options for long-term digital storage of text
documents seem to be based mostly on XML but also include PDF/A and of
course good old ASCII text.  In this vein it is interesting how the
content of Microsoft's, and Open Office's XML-based documents ('docx'
etc) are more accessible and - if you will - open than before.  If you
are interested to see this, change the file extension of a .docx to
.zip and open with your favorite unzipping program - you can then
navigate through the folder structure and view all the XML content
using Notepad.  (Note you may not be able to change the extension from
Windows Explorer).

Andrew Warland
[log in to unmask]
Sydney, Australia
My views entirely

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