National Archives' Digital Woes

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "The National Archives, entrusted to preserve America's official history, will have to handle roughly 100 million emails from the Bush White House, up from 32 million during the Clinton years, according to the Wall Street Journal. 'The rapid adoption of electronic communications technology in the last decade has created a major crisis for the Archives,' the Journal reports. 'For one thing, the amount of data to be preserved has exploded in recent years, thanks to the proliferation of high-tech tools such as personal computers and wireless email devices such as BlackBerries. At the same time, technology is becoming obsolete so fast that electronic documents created today may not be legible on tomorrow's devices, the equivalent of trying to play an eight-track tape on an iPod.' The director of the Electronic Records Archives Program tells the Journal, 'We don't want to turn into a Cyber-Williamsburg, a place that keeps old technologies alive.'"

Comments

Re:some funny math

[NonSequor]

This is the Bush administration we're talking about. They all use HTML mail with lots of attached graphics. On top of that, many messages get forwarded hundreds of times.

Technology explodes

[Architect_sasyr]

Well, if the technology that uses the emails is exploding, surely the software/systems that archive the software are too.

A couple of BSD box's with some Oracle or similar should do it.

iPod Mod...

[__aaclcg7560]

The article mention playing eight-track tapes on an iPod. Does any have the link to that ultimate retro mod? Does it come with a Saturday Night Live dance cover?

Re:OK

[Sinryc]

Yea, there is something your not seeing. The fact of the matter is they are talking about STORING the saved data. Not opening it.

Good job on getting modded well. Anytime someone says "Open Source it" They get modded pretty well.

Good job.

I'd love to read those emails...

[rampant mac]

"The National Archives [...] will have to handle roughly 100 million emails from the Bush White House, up from 32 million during the Clinton years"

I'd love to read those emails, seeing as how we've gone from:

From: bclinton@whitehouse.gov
To: hclinton@whitehouse.giv
CC: agore@whitehouse.gov; tgore@whitehouse.gov; monica04329@yahoo.com; ltripp@weightwatchers.com;
Subject: omglol, you got to get me some of these!

I want these for Christmas! http://www.big-fat-cigars.com/

To something along the lines of:

From: gbushjr@whitehouse.gov
To: dickc@whitehouse.giv
CC: crice@whitehouse.gov; jbush@whitehouse.gov; lbush@whitehouse.gov; urnotapuppet@gmail.com; osamab@msn.com; cpowell@hotmail.com;
Subject: Are they for real? Can we attack them too?

Subject sayz it all, any toughts Dick? I think we can git `em.

> DYKE BOURDER OIL SERVIES
> OFFER FOR SALE OF NIGERIAN CRUDE OIL
>
> Dear Sir,
>
> I am President of blah blah blah...

Talk to the Catholic Church

[toupsie]

Monks have done an amazing job preserving important documents over the years. In fact, Xerox worked with Brother Dominic in the field of document preservation. Print out all the e-mails on archive quality paper and store them underground. Be sure they are also translated in Spanish so future Americans will be able to read them.