International Amateur Scanning League will rescue our video treasures!
We took a big step forward today with the birth of a new club in Washington, the International Amateur Scanning League. These volunteers, organized by members of the DC CopyNight and by employees of the Smithsonian doing volunteer work after hours, is going out to the National Archives and Records Administration and copying over 1,500 DVDs to be uploaded to the net.
What makes this grassroots digitization effort so remarkable is that it has the full support of the government. Indeed, David Ferriero, the U.S. Archivist, joined me in the initial meeting where we taught volunteers how to rip DVDs!
another WIN for paper!!!
books stored in even pretty crappy conditions can survive for 100 years and hundreds more in perfect conditions. never so for film or CDs or digital bits.
so every 20-30 years, all that other stuff has to be reformatted into the current (future) medium to ensure it’s survival.
but I can stick a book in a plastic bag, and so long as written English is still understood by future Earthers, the tale will survive for several lifetimes.