Thanks for brining this up Martin, and for sharing the link to the Report
(which admittedly I haven't had a chance to look at yet ...).

Fred makes an excellent point in his #2 (not that his first point was
lacking in any way!).  The natural resiliency of paper-based records,
allowing for a minimum of human interaction to ensure longevity, is key.  It
is not the nature of humans to be single-minded.  We're distractible,
political, ego-driven beings who's attention and focus is a constantly
moving target.  The time and effort required to attend to digital
preservation is not something I see a majority of individuals being
committed to of their own volition.  Also consider the costs associated with
digital preservation are much more than that of paper-based records, not
only in terms of time and effort but hard cash.

One other quick observation - I see our heritage being perserved by sector.
I would expect those content creators who are legally bound to preserve
(such as governments) to be much more likely to apply the needed
resources consistently and over long periods of time than those who have no
impetus outside of a personal penchant for preservation.  The problem there
is that our residual history will be uneven, only telling parts of the
story.  It is likely we won't have the manuscript of the independent writer
or the song written by the moon-lighting accountant, but we will have every
dotted "i" and every crossed "t" from the Boston City Council meetings (that
one's for you Mr. Saklad!).

Back to work ... perhaps more later ...

Julie

-- 
Julie J. Colgan, CRM

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