Oh the pitfalls of a digital world
Well, I am in the middle of experiencing the drawbacks to depending only on digital information. Although I love winter and I am thrilled with the snow, the storm unfortunately knocked out my internet. So now I’m working in the “business center” of my apartment complex, crammed in a small room, with about three computers and one of the most annoying individuals I’ve ever met. I apologize for any errors or incoherent thoughts in my blog. I’m typing as fast as possible….
I can definitely relate to the concerns over the unreliability of technology. BACK UP YOUR INFORMATION is one of the best pieces of advice this book has given so far! Last year, I was halfway through a take-home exam when my computer froze and shut down. Needless to say, I had forgotten to save any of the work at that point. I now back up my work about every other line. On a larger scale, I could see how this could get tricky. It would take so much time, money and work to continuously back up an archive or website, especially one which changes on a relatively regular basis. This also brings up one of our favorite topics… those inappropriate comments on sites. Should you sort through a site/comments before backing up? This would take forever. So does this mean that the idiot comment on the Pearl Harbor site is preserved? Ugh!
The section on changing technology also resonated with me. Apparently, this reading really applied to my personal life! Anyway, after our class discussions about the short life of CD’s and other storage information, I started worrying about little things, like all my papers or pictures I have stored on CD’s. I was pretty proud that I had thought to back up the stuff on my computer, never really thinking about the storage devices themselves. Changing technology is a whole other issue. What happens to all my stuff when CD’s are no longer compatible? Should I keep dumping onto new storage devices as they are released. Again, the concern of time and money! While my concerns are all on a small scale, I can’t imagine how stressful it must be to be in charge of entire digital archives.
I really enjoyed the Lifehacker website. What a great way to organize and publicize all sorts of random information that people may want to access. The CiteULike link was really amazing and incredibly useful. I love that it is all online so you don’t need to install or pay for anything (unlike endnote). You are essentially creating a bibliography for yourself that is easily accessible from any computer anywhere in the world. The fact that citation details are added automatically is a huge timesaver as well.
February 13th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
I agree about backing up! I try and hit up my entire computer once a month to make sure the documents are covered….The problem is backing up things like music and photos which take up a lot more room.
February 13th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
Emily, your concerns about back-up are very true and raise a good point that the book underscores - historians need to be concerned about back-up. Even if a historian is working for a large university and saving his or her stuff on the campus network, they cannot assume the IT department will take care of everything, especially when it’s the historians research (his or her life’s work) on the IT system. I remember working in corporate America and just never concerning myself with having info backed-up. That was the job of the IT manager. While it may have been his job to select the necessary back-up system and keep it working smoothly, I should have been more aware of the potential for losing potentially valuable work for clients if the system failed.
February 14th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
I have felt the repercussions of not backing up as well. My hard drive died in my first computer, and with it went all of the music I had downloaded, papers I had written, and everything else you could think of. I still miss some of that music. I now back up periodically, and have become pretty anal about saving my papers (I now save each paper in at least two places). But as you point out, technology changes, and how much money are we going to end up spending to save everything for the future?