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So we should build another new bureaucracy to make sure that our digitization continuity and archive efforts are successful. To save money. Hmm.

kelnos 3y ago
That absolutely would save money. The costs of the actual digital storage would be much much lower than for physical items. And once you have an agency that's set up to be experts in digital archival, you can use that for anything, not just these wills.
- happytiger 3y ago
  I think the breakeven is generally around 50 years. However, it introduces the possibility that records won’t survive the government, and a plethora of other issues that come along with locking into a storage format, the progression of technology, etc. Bear in mind the average age of countries is only 158 years globally. It’s not as cut and dry as it initially appears. Everyone is telling me how obvious it is to gain the cost savings, and perhaps it is. But it is by no means as clear cut, especially when you consider the solution of keeping both but reducing the cost of physical archives to pure storage only post-digitization to be a default against destruction. That use case complicates everything. We also have a boatload of experience maintaining paper records and libraries. We don’t have nearly the track record with digital. https://lifeshareproject.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/physical-conservation-vs-digital-preservation-a-cost-comparison/ https://lifeshareproject.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/physical-c...
jdietrich 3y ago
The National Archives are already responsible for managing paper documents held by the government for historical reasons. Given that most of the new documents being added to that archive are digital, it is entirely logical for them to also have responsibility for digitisation. Keeping paper records is not a solution, it is an admission of failure. We have to figure this stuff out now, because the overwhelming majority of important documents being written today will never exist in printed form and need to be preserved for the future. If we don't trust ourselves to scan and shred old documents, then we have much bigger problems.

kelnos 3y ago

That absolutely would save money. The costs of the actual digital storage would be much much lower than for physical items. And once you have an agency that's set up to be experts in digital archival, you can use that for anything, not just these wills.

happytiger 3y ago
I think the breakeven is generally around 50 years. However, it introduces the possibility that records won’t survive the government, and a plethora of other issues that come along with locking into a storage format, the progression of technology, etc. Bear in mind the average age of countries is only 158 years globally. It’s not as cut and dry as it initially appears. Everyone is telling me how obvious it is to gain the cost savings, and perhaps it is. But it is by no means as clear cut, especially when you consider the solution of keeping both but reducing the cost of physical archives to pure storage only post-digitization to be a default against destruction. That use case complicates everything. We also have a boatload of experience maintaining paper records and libraries. We don’t have nearly the track record with digital. https://lifeshareproject.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/physical-conservation-vs-digital-preservation-a-cost-comparison/ https://lifeshareproject.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/physical-c...

jdietrich 3y ago

The National Archives are already responsible for managing paper documents held by the government for historical reasons. Given that most of the new documents being added to that archive are digital, it is entirely logical for them to also have responsibility for digitisation. Keeping paper records is not a solution, it is an admission of failure. We have to figure this stuff out now, because the overwhelming majority of important documents being written today will never exist in printed form and need to be preserved for the future. If we don't trust ourselves to scan and shred old documents, then we have much bigger problems.