[iDC] shelf life

[Craig Bellamy]

Adrianne asks some interesting questions. And yes, preservation is a 
debate, and yes, things become redundant, and yes, good art is sometime 
lost to bad.

The tricky question that is often not addressed is significance. We at 
the AHDS preserve all digital works funded under the UK's Arts and 
Humanities Research Council's as they are all ready deemed significant 
as they have already been awarded public money thorough a competitive 
system. But in the broader world, significance is not always as obvious. 
ie. is isn't always obvious who the work is significant to. Significance 
is a debate and in the digital preservation world this is 2 pronged. A 
computer file has significant properties that need to be preserved but 
the file must also deal with some sort of significant thing. Sure, not 
everything is going to be deemed 'significant' by our institutions; this 
is a eternal debate. It doesn't need preserving.

best,

Craig



-- 
Dr Craig Bellamy
Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS)
King's College, London
http://ahds.ac.uk/ictguides/
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"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." Speech to Parliament 1783 (William Pitt Younger)


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