National Archive File Format Time Bomb

geordie_loz writes "The BBC is reporting that the UK National Archive is warning of old formats being a 'ticking time-bomb' where data is going to be lost because of incompatibility in newer versions of software, and software not existing at all. More surprisingly, Microsoft has offered a solution via the OOXML format."

Comments

Re:Idiots

[xtracto]

2. idiots which believe they can't find even a single copy of the software they need

Please give me a link to a copy of the Professional Write 3 (PW) software app. for MSDOS 6.

Yep, I had that very problem some years ago when I was cleaning my room and found several 5 1/4 disquettes which contained the .pw extension. No way to find the program.

Bright people don't make tech decisions

[Cheesey]

The idea that an institution like the British Library, which is run by people bright enough to make you look like a dead match, would accept such a preposterous idea is insulting.

Unfortunately, those bright people don't get to make technical decisions.

The British Library recently introduced SED, an electronic document delivery system. With SED, you can order electronic copies of journal papers and articles from their archives. Great idea! Previously, you had to wait for the documents to come through the post, and that would take a week or so. Now you get them by email in a couple of working days.

Except that the documents are crippled by Adobe DRM, which imposes the following restrictions:

• You can only view them using certain specific versions of Acrobat Reader (6 or 7) - the latest version is not recommended.
• The software only works on Windows 2000 or XP. No Linux support, no Mac support. Vista might work, but again, it's not recommended.
• You can only look at each document for a limited time, and you can only print it once.

So, if you want to use the service, you'd better hope that you have (a) the right version of Windows, (b) the right version of Acrobat Reader, (c) a reliable net connection, and, most importantly, (d) a very reliable printer that won't chew up the document. Unless you're a filthy dirty pirate, of course.

If Adobe managed to convince the British Library to put up with this ridiculous system, I am sure that Microsoft will have no difficulty convincing them about their archive "solution". If SED is anything to go by, it'll be another awful implementation of a great idea.

Re:Doesn't matter.

[Bazzargh]

And being a government, these files are INCREDIBLY important.

Why haven't they been converted? Really, all their DIGITAL archives should be in a single format by now.

No, they shouldn't. You usually want 3 formats:
- the original format of the document. Whatever whichever idiot happened to write (or record, or video) it in, you absolutely want the original in your records.
- a searchable format (eg OCR'd text from scanned image docs)
- a rendered format. (eg an image or pdf, or svg - something open enough that you can continue to show how the doc would have looked). The appropriate rendered format varies. Paper is not an appropriate format for storing CCTV footage, for example ;)

If you're very, very lucky the original is both searchable and viewable; like, say, HTML. It gets more complicated too, because you often want to store a redacted copy of the document (think of the Onion story 'CIA realise they've been using black highlighter pen all these years') and you want that searchable too, so you have to keep a redacted searchable format too... and of course, some of the records are on actual paper. Have you started worrying about the fading inks in the originals yet?

BTW you can't restrict the format of the original. Consider an email from a corporate bidding for a govt contract, with attachments. They need to keep those.

- Mr. E

PS, posting anon because I have dealings with the national archives, and don't want to speak for my company.