Electronic publishing

[Richard Jensen]

The question of longevity of electronic data is an interesting one.
There was an article in Scientific American within the last year or two
addressing just this question.  As I recall, the author suggested that
the useful life span of various technologies was rather short.  How long
will it be beofre none of us have a usable 5.25" drive that can actually
read a 360K diskette?  And, more important, will the data still be there
in uncorrupted form?

An experience we have had at Notre Dame brings the point home.  We have a
database of over 60,000 plant specimens that relies on very outdated
technology for access (it was written in machine specific PL/1 back in
the late 60s).  We still have the original punch cards and wanted to read
these in to a more modern database.  But, we were unable to find a
working card reader.  The last one (at least in our immediate part of the
country) disappeared at least 4-5 years ago.  Because we also had the
data on tape, it was retrievable - but not from the *original* source.
Of course, someone could translate all those cards manually, but what a
horrendous task!

Richard J. Jensen      |   E-MAIL: rjensen at saintmarys.edu
Dept. of Biology       |   TELEPHONE: 219-284-4674
Saint Mary's College   |   FAX: 219-284-4716
Notre Dame, IN  46556  |