1 . Long-term digital Preservation
vey ’ s 900th anniversary in the 1980s .
Data collected included maps , color photographs , statistics from the 1981 national census and ‘ virtual walks ’ as well as video footage – with the entire project costing over $ 12 million .
The project was stored on adapted laserdiscs in the LaserVision Read Only Memory ( LV -ROM ) and viewed using an Acorn BBC Master with an additional Phillips ‘ Domesday Player ’. With hindsight , it ’ s not difficult see how 20 years later it was almost impossible to access these files .
The software for the project was written in Basic Combined Programming Language ( BCPL ), which is no longer used , while photographs were stored as single-frame analogue video – because image-compression formats such as JPEG had not yet been invented .
It took the BBC vast amounts of work and significant investment to recover and re-present the
11 content in a web-based format . Throw that situation forward another 15 years and the pace of technological advancement is even faster .
The reality is that any digital content older than ten years old is massively at risk – and businesses need to plan for that if they want to protect their corporate memory . Some businesses are legally required to keep information for many years .
Building regulations , for instance , mean construction companies need to keep blueprints and records way into the future . Law firms and government departments likewise .
Of course digital preservation is not the only issue likely to shake the industry this year - increasing storage costs and a boost in global data handling are also likely to have a major impact .
Here are the top five issues for information management in 2017 :
1 . Long-term digital Preservation
How many formats of the past