Re: [ARSCLIST] Cassette obsolescence - digitizing standards

[Karl Miller <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 20 Feb 2006, Steven Smolian wrote:

> How many video formats for audio, digital or analog, are still accessible by
> institutions with holdings in those formats?  Aren't we encouraging
> archivists to create media that can only serve to guarantee future
> generations of sound restorers a career?  Oh, when will we ever learn.

It would seem, never. But then, it would seem to me such is human nature,
or as a friend of mine likes to say, "expediency at the expense of
excellence."

I would guess that we don't even have a 1/10th of an educated
work force required to address the reformating needs of the present. We
probably don't even have 1% of those needed to make informed decisions as
to what needs to be reformatted. I am also reminded of how few places find
these skills to be of value...my own university included.

As for the future sound restorers...what about the programmers we
will need to reengineer the code to translate those "antique"
file formats of the early 21st century...

Then we have outmoded methodologies for cataloging the
stuff...methodologies that encumber the process to the point where
probably less than 10% of what is out there has been cataloged, coupling
that with an exponential growth in the creation of information...
I know, "we don't have the money," but you never will, so why not simplify
the system...

Karl (anyone out there with an extra imitrex to spare...)