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Re: [ARSCLIST] Interesting WSJ Article on when libraries should discard their holdings.



Don Cox wrote:
On 05/01/07, Tom Fine wrote:
Sorry but this is an uninformed statement. A company like Google or
any other halfway responsible for-profit entity has servers mirrored
and backed up nine ways to Sunday, including information spread all
over the globe in redundant locations. Likely, the data will live on
beyond the printed originals barring a nuclear holocaust, in which
case it really doesn't matter.

On the contrary, that is when it matters most. Think of the importance of the few (in some cases one only) copies of Greek and Roman books for the recovery of European civilisation after the Dark Ages.

Hard copy books and 78 rpm records are more likely to survive in a
useful state than digital data.

I should stay out of this, but I just reread Asimov's "Nightfall" last week and it seems that beta is dimming in the sky once again.


Mike
--
mrichter@xxxxxxx
http://www.mrichter.com/


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