Okay, while this gave me a bit of a headache (waaay deep for a Friday,
Jess!), I think I might have to disagree?  [the ibuprofen hasn't kicked in
yet so I'm not committing to disagreement just yet ... <wink>]

Jesse said:  "If you have a record you need to keep for 300 years, I don't
think it *can*
have historical value in the traditional historical/archival sense. Why?
Because in all likelihood it will need to be migrated multiple times over
its lifespan."

My problem with what Jesse described is that it seems to be placing the
ultimate, yet possibly artifical, historical value on the medium.

We all know that the value of a record is based on the content, not the
medium, right?  Okay.  And I agree that there is potentially value in
medium as historical artifact in and of itself.  But I just don't buy that a
record can only have historical value if it still resides on the *original*
medium.

Maybe this is a question best asked of the professional archivists on the
list.  What say you about the theory of archival preservation - is there
room in there for consideration that it is the content that needs
preservation first, and that, whenever possible, it's also nice to preserve
the original medium.  Or is there just no wiggle room in there for that?

I'm just sayin' ... are there not any instances of records having historical
value ONLY because of the content, and so migration IS desired in order to
preserve the content?  Does that break all of the rules?  Seems to me that
is where we're heading in the born-digital age.

The Constitution, the original one, has value as a physical artifact.  But
the content of the Constitution has value as a record of the founding of our
country.  The content will still be of "permanent" (sorry!!) value, whether
or not the physical original still exists or we are relying on a validated,
authentic representation of the content of the original.

What say you?

Julie

-- 
Julie J. Colgan, CRM

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