As long as the value of doing it outweighs the cost.

-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Chris Muller
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 9:07 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: A Lesson in Records Management


If I may, I'd like to put in my two-cent's worth.

Perhaps not in every case, but it's *almost always* better to go back to 
original data rather than use imaged material. (If it needs to be 
searchable, there are likely to be some OCR errors, and image files are 
generally quite a bit bulkier.)

There are some folks around (I see one in the mirror when I'm shaving :-) 
who specialize in puzzling out old file formats and can handle older 
computer media. Often it's faster and cheaper to find the right nerd...

A few examples of undocumented data we've recovered in the last few years: 
Romanian Census of 1977, Richard Nixon's mainframe appointment 
calendar, "vacuumed" records re Whitewater.

"data archeology" doesn't always work out, but it's generally worh a shot.

Chris

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