Newsletter No. 146
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FreePint
"Helping 63,000 people use the Web for their work"
http://www.freepint.com/
ISSN 1460-7239 2nd October 2003 No.146
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IN THIS ISSUE
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EDITORIAL
MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
By Ellen Metter
FREEPINT BAR
In Association with Factiva
a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
JOBS
Library And Administration Assistant
Analyst/Researcher
Corporate Records Manager
Information Officer/Librarian
TIPS ARTICLE
"Problems with Good Credit Information on Chinese Companies"
By Adam Dupre
BOOKSHELF
"Winning Ebrand Strategies"
Reviewed By Duncan Parry
FEATURE ARTICLE
"Digital Preservation - Barbarians at the Gate"
By Jonathan Crowhurst
EVENTS, GOLD AND FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
CONTACT INFORMATION
ONLINE VERSION WITH ACTIVATED HYPERLINKS
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/021003.htm>
FULLY FORMATTED VERSION
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/021003.pdf>
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Online Information Exhibition FREE pre-registration now open:
Over 250 suppliers of content resources & info management solutions
Comprehensive FREE programme of seminars & masterclasses
Gain essential tips and tricks on searching, collaborative working,
information literacy, blogging and much more
NEW! - Attend co-located 'Content Management Europe' expo
Register FREE <http://www.online-information.co.uk/ol03/tickets.html?em0110-2>
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>>> ABOUT FREEPINT <<<
FreePint is an online network of information searchers. Members
receive this free newsletter twice a month: it is packed with tips
on finding quality and reliable business information on the Internet.
Joining is free at <http://www.freepint.com/> and provides access to
a substantial archive of articles, reviews, jobs & events, with
answers to research questions and networking at the FreePint Bar.
Please circulate this newsletter which is best read when printed out.
To receive a fully formatted version as an attachment or a brief
notification when it's online, visit <http://www.freepint.com/member>.
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EDITORIAL
We're hardly a day or two into October and the shops here in the UK
are already full of all things Christmas. It seems that they try to
build the excitement earlier and earlier each year.
Of course, special events that occur in December do require a lot of
advance thought. We're readying ourselves for Online Information 2003
in London in December and are planning a really fun presence to launch
our exciting new service called 'FreePintVIP' <http://www.FreePintVIP.com>.
VIP will be a monthly publication focusing on information products and
information people. Two months before launch and it's already taking
off - organisations are posting their press releases to the VIP Wire
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b25742>.
Also at the show we'll be announcing the winner of the 'Online
Information / FreePint Award for Innovative Customer Service'. Voting
will close shortly, so make your nomination soon to ensure it's
registered <http://www.freepint.com/go/b25898>.
There's no let up in the amount we're packing into the newsletter
today and I hope you pick up some valuable titbits. Of particular
importance is digital preservation: I hope you'll check out the
feature article which highlights the issues.
We also review the latest happenings at the Bar, which is busier than
ever with over 100 postings in the last week alone. We're very pleased
to have been swamped with orders for our latest report on negotiating
licenses, and are looking forward to our first visit to India next
week to talk at a conference about the power of online communities.
As the pressure grows, so does my beard, which I've grown for our
local musical production of Calamity Jane in which I'm appearing as
Wild Bill Hickock. First night tonight!
I hope you enjoy today's FreePint and will give us your feedback at
the Bar. FreePinters are very supportive people and that's what makes
this such a great community to be a part of. Whip crack away!
All the best
William
William Hann BSc(Hons) MCLIP
Founder and Managing Editor, FreePint
Email: <william.hann@freepint.com> Tel: +44 (0)1784 420044
Free Pint is a Registered Trademark of Free Pint Limited (R) 1997-2003
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>>> Innovative Customer Service - Nominations Please <<<
Make you nomination for the information organisation which has
provided you with *innovative* customer service:
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b25898>
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MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
By Ellen Metter
* Since FreePint readers are undoubtedly an adventurous lot, the
International Salary Calculator is likely of interest. At
<http://www.homefair.com/homefair/calc/salcalc.html> choose 'click
here' under the question "Want to compare Canadian or international
cities?"
* Find an impressive array of facts and figures at the
<http://infoplease.com/> site, created by the publisher of numerous
print almanacs. There's a U.S. bias, but plenty of international
information, too.
* Music dabblers should enjoy the All Music Guide (AMG)
<http://www.allmusic.com>. AMG supplies essays on different music
styles, discographies, and performer biographies. For classical
music, see the AMG sister site at <http://www.allclassical.com>.
* Ancient World Web <http://www.julen.net/aw/> is a marvellous portal
leading to Web pages that discuss many aspects of the world prior to
700 AD, including daily life, architecture, language and literature.
* Writers of all stripes will enjoy the <http://www.writing-world.com>
page. Their free weekly newsletter offers informative articles on
numerous writing topics. These articles are also searchable on
their Web page.
Ellen Metter is a librarian and author of 'Facts in a Flash: A
Research Guide for Writers' and 'Cheerfully Childless: Humor for
Those Who Hesitate to Procreate'.
Submit your top five favourite Web sites. See the guidelines at
<http://www.freepint.com/author.htm>.
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YOU'VE INVESTED IN CONTENT AND BUSINESS APPLICATIONS,
BUT ARE THEY WORKING HARD ENOUGH?
Factiva provides the tools and capabilities to build custom
information solutions for integration into your business applications.
With easy access to the right information in the right place you can
make informed business decisions, increasing organisational
productivity and reducing risk.
Visit <http://www.factiva.com/redirects/workflow/freepint>
for relevant white papers and case studies.
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"Practical Guide to Negotiating Licenses for Electronic Products"
ISBN 1904769012
Do you negotiate licenses for electronic products? Then you must
check out this new report from FreePint. Tips on contract clauses,
model license agreements and more.
"Very informative, just what we needed (and were looking for) at
the moment, as we are renegotiating a lot of e-journal contracts.
Very good value for money."
<http://www.freepint.com/shop/report/>
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FREEPINT BAR
In Association with Factiva
a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
According to our usage guidelines, press releases can't be posted at
the FreePint Bar. So it's good that they now have their own home in
the FreePintVIP Wire <http://www.freepint.com/go/b25742>.
We have had to come up with solutions like this as we're pretty much
our own Webmaster, like so many users of the Bar. One of them is
looking for examples of written agreements about links between sites
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b25778>. Another needs to 'prove' what
content is on their Web site at any one time
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b25873>. Do you know how to link different
frames of an animated GIF to different target URLs? You'll probably
have to use a bit of JavaScript <http://www.freepint.com/go/b25801>.
So much about using the Web isn't actually anything to do directly
with it. Over the last month we've had a number of questions about
storing information, both in flat-file/freeform and relational
database format. For instance, do you know of a tool to archive Web
pages which is free and integrated into Internet Explorer
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b25842>? What about replacing images with
characters in a Word file <http://www.freepint.com/go/b25681>? Could
you help someone with a specific question about inserting a date field
in a Word template to track library enquiries
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b25664>?
While we're on information-related queries, have you heard about how
to manage serials in Outlook <http://www.freepint.com/go/b25699>?
Could you help a librarian wanting to move from the NHS to public
libraries <http://www.freepint.com/go/b25883>? Or wanting to become a
children's librarian <http://www.freepint.com/go/b25797>?
Finally, of the many published-research-related questions, we still
need help with market statistics for new mobile handsets
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b25750> and credit information providers
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b25796>. What about an average percentage
for the cost of design and packaging in the total production cost of
an item <http://www.freepint.com/go/b25768> or expanding one's range
of broker research sources <http://www.freepint.com/go/b25764>?
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The FreePint Bar is where you can get help with your tricky research
questions, for free! <http://www.freepint.com/bar>
Help with study for information-related courses is available at the
FreePint Student Bar <http://www.freepint.com/student>.
Twice-weekly email digests of the latest postings can be requested
at <http://www.freepint.com/member>.
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> = = = = = = = = = = = = = ADVERTISEMENT = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
--- GLEN RECRUITMENT ---
Glen Recruitment is a leading independent employment consultancy
dealing in the recruitment of Information Specialists, Knowledge
Professionals, Business Analysts, Researchers and Librarians.
We provide both permanent and temporary staff at all levels from
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For more details call 020 7745 7245 email info@glenrecruitment.co.uk
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FREEPINT JOBS
<http://www.freepint.com/jobs>
FreePint Jobs -- the best place for information vacancies.
* VACANCY SEARCHING -- Free search and set up a weekly alert profile.
* VACANCY RECRUITING -- Complete the form and advertise a vacancy
for just GBP195 <http://www.freepint.com/jobs/submit/overview.php3>.
This week's selected listings are below. All new jobs are posted to
the Bar and Bar Digest (circulation 12,000+) and matched against the
1000+ live job seeker profiles. Last week's Bar 'new jobs' listing is
at <http://www.freepint.com/go/b25746> and this week's at
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b25875>.
Here are some of the latest featured jobs:
Library And Administration Assistant
After review of info needs, gov agency seeks librarian to push
services forward & setup auto LMS; Chartered good but not essential.
Recruiter: Sue Hill Recruitment
<http://www.freepint.com/go/j2693>
Analyst/Researcher
Confident and proactive Corporate Finance Analyst/Researcher
with telephone interviewing and report writing skills.
Recruiter: Glen Recruitment
<http://www.freepint.com/go/j2714>
Corporate Records Manager
Working for the Legal Services Commission, you will develop and
implement robust records management policies and procedures.
Recruiter: Legal Services Commission
<http://www.freepint.com/go/j2718>
Information Officer/Librarian
MIDIRS provides a worldwide information service for midwives
and other health professionals.
Recruiter: MIDIRS (The Midwives Information and Resource Service)
<http://www.freepint.com/go/j2719>
[The above jobs are paid listings]
Find out more today at <http://www.freepint.com/jobs>
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>>INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION INDUSTRY AWARDS<<
Royal Lancaster Hotel, London, 3 December 2003
Hosted by Online Information and Information World Review
Made a valuable contribution to the Information Industry?
NOMINATIONS DEADLINE - 3 OCTOBER!
<http://www.online-information.co.uk/awards?em-0110-1>
TABLES GOING FAST! Reserve your place Today! Email awards@imark.co.uk
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TIPS ARTICLE
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/021003.htm#tips>
"Problems with Good Credit Information on Chinese Companies"
By Adam Dupre
The continuing rapid rise in the importance of China as an economic
power in the world has virtually recovered from the temporary blip in
activity caused by the SARS outbreak earlier in 2003. The world
markets are turning their full attention back to China as a massive
emerging opportunity and for exporters all over the world, it's
business as usual again. But for the Western business person there is
still the major headache that's always been there when it comes to
dealing with China: the difficulty in obtaining reliable corporate
information, interpreted and analysed to Western commercial standards.
You would normally turn first to the major Western credit information
companies, but they all have problems working effectively in China in
the private sector. Why? Mainly, their problems come from their common
strategy of trying to offer comprehensive coverage of a given market -
they want to have a credit report on any company right there ready for
delivery when you ask. In China this is kind of possible in the public
sector where quoted companies have to disclose information, but when
it comes to the increasingly important private sector, (which some say
is already the effective driving force of the economy), the big credit
reporting companies hit problems - for two reasons mainly:
1) Financial and corporate information on private Chinese companies
is not easy to get hold of. Three agencies of the Chinese State do
collect it, but you need the right connections to get hold of it
because it's not actually publicly available. It's collected locally
in each of over 30 Chinese provinces, and there's no central databank
for all companies in China.
2) In their core, Western, markets, the big credit information
providers are able to offer mass coverage of thousands of companies by
using highly sophisticated software programs to analyse companies'
financial accounts which they have downloaded into their systems. In
China, even if they could get hold of all this information from the
authorities, financial accounts are not subject to the same auditing
standards as financial accounts in the West, so they can't be trusted
in the same way. You really need to do some other checks (like phone
research) around it the data you collect from the authorities, in
order to confirm or correct it. And making extra checks makes the job
labour- and skill-intensive in a way that the big companies are not
geared up to handle.
There are local Chinese credit reporting companies, but they have
problems too. One is cultural - the operating basis of the Chinese
economy is so different from economies in the West that it is not easy
for Chinese analysts to appreciate which aspects of a company's
structure, condition and performance are of the greatest significance
to Western businesses. For example, they know very well that Chinese
company accounts may not be strictly accurate (revenue and profit can
be underreported, as well as sometimes solvency problems being
concealed), but they do not know how to explain this clearly to a
Western audience. Also, there is not just a conceptual problem of
explanation, there's also a real problem with language. Mostly the
Chinese analysts do not write directly in English, but depend on
translators who may not be familiar with the language of credit
reporting, and whose English may not be that good in any case. These
two problems make it difficult to understand and to rely on credit
information produced by Chinese credit agencies.
So what is the answer? Inevitably, necessity will produce a solution
in time. Major western corporations will continue to invest heavily in
and sell to China. As WTO membership and Chinese government policy
opens the door to the Chinese markets ever wider, Western investors
and traders are already demanding much better quality Intellectual
Property protection, and better legal recourse where contracts are
reneged on. But for the time being, for some reason, the issue of the
provision of reliable information and interpretation of company
information for credit assessment purposes has not moved up the
international political and commercial agenda in China. Maybe it's
because the credit analysis function in so many Western businesses is
just not considered the sexiest part of commerce? Or maybe it's
because businesses are used to relying on the professionalism of their
credit departments and don't realise the extent these actually need
proper support? Whatever the reason, once the major intellectual
property rules are agreed and once a solid and reliable commercial
legal structure is in place in China, surely the issue of reliable
credit information will be dealt with.
In the meantime, though, as international trade with China expands
rapidly year-on-year and shows no sign of slowing, there's a real
issue for the international credit manager as to what to do to get
good credit information now. And as trade with China expands, this
problem will just worse before it gets better.
One answer, (that certainly works where it is been tried), is to
combine the best of what the Chinese local researchers can get through
their connections and their research skills, with experienced analysis
from Western experts who know the international markets. The Western
analysts can assess the Chinese subject companies to exacting Western
commercial standards, provide comprehensive ratings and credit
judgements that are appropriate to the market context and are geared
to answer the concerns of the Westerner looking at potential business
with China. Already this solution has proven success when applied in
the Export Credit Insurance, International Transport, Education,
Manufacturing and International Commodity Trading sectors in the
United States and in the United Kingdom.
This kind of specialist research and analysis is obviously a bit more
expensive than a standard on-line credit report (though in reality the
cost difference isn't that great). But where there's so much more
potentially to lose, maybe it's worth spending a little more to
evaluate the risks in advance? It will be some time before it is
realistically possible to generate mass credit information in China as
quickly and reliably and cheaply as it is in most Western markets. A
lot of money could be lost in that time.
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Adam Dupre, owner and founder of China Company Research Services Ltd
(CCRS), has worked in the specialist international credit information
and company research business for 18 years. He was a founder, director
and then CEO of MRC Business Information Group Ltd, one of the leading
specialist providers of credit and commercial information and
investigation in the international maritime and commodity trading
markets. Adam left MRC in February 2002 to set up CCRS together with
a Hong Kong Chinese business colleague, a team of researchers in
Beijing and a network of highly trained Western business analysis
experts. The intention behind the new company is to help supply the
increasing need for high quality, comprehensive and reliable credit
information on Chinese companies <http://www.ccrs.info>.
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Related FreePint links:
* 'Finance and Business' articles in the FreePint Portal
<http://www.freepint.com/go/p50>
* Post a message to the author, Adam Dupre, or suggest further
resources at the FreePint Bar <http://www.freepint.com/bar>
* Read this article online, with activated hyperlinks
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/021003.htm#feature>
* Access the entire archive of FreePint content
<http://www.freepint.com/portal/content/>
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What is the ResourceShelf?
<http://www.resourceshelf.com>
ResourceShelf is a free daily update containing news of interest
to information professionals around the world.
Topics include the latest news with web search engines, research
tips, new web resources, and much more.
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>>> FreePint Financials -- UK Companies and Directors Revealed <<<
FreePint Financials is a comprehensive database of all UK
companies and company directors. It's free to search and
requires no subscription to get detailed reports pay-as-you-go:
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FREEPINT BOOKSHELF
<http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf>
"Winning E-Brand Strategies"
Reviewed By Duncan Parry
Many would-be Internet millionaires spent thousands of pounds building
eye-catching websites, only for the mantra "build it and they will
come" to turn out to be false; visitors - even better, customers -
didn't arrive, and the entrepreneurs were left struggling to market
their website on a meagre budget or were forced to return cap in hand
to their financial backers.
The authors of 'Winning E-Brand Strategies' took a different approach;
they applied their in-depth knowledge of an existing trade (luxury
ties from Saville Row) and built an online business with minimal
funds; in fact they started out being paid by wholesale customers in
silk, and grew the business without venture capitalist backing.
The aim of their book is to transfer their experience and provide the
reader with practical advice on how to plan, launch and grow an online
business that is competitive and can adapt to new challenges. Topics
covered include ebusiness planning, collecting market data, website
development (using an outside consultant), building an online brand
and optimising a website to increase traffic from the search engines.
The information on planning and developing an online presence,
including a niche market and strong brand, is useful and the examples
of Hunter's successes and mistakes useful. However, the book is let
down by the chapters on marketing a website through search engines.
There is no mention of pay-per-click (PPC) search engine listings,
which appear at the top of search results on all the major engines and
are increasingly seen as an integral part of any search engine
marketing (SEM) strategy. Admittedly the book was written in 2002;
but PPC has been in existence since 2000 and there is no investigation
of the potential for sales leads offered by PPC advertising. This is
a surprising oversight. The book focuses solely on search engine
optimisation (SEO) of the code and content of a website to improve its
position in search results.
The information on SEO is worth reading - but do not change your
website based on this alone; some of the information is out of date
and some important methods are not covered (e.g. increasing the number
of links from quality websites to your site, to improve your ranking
on Google). However there is good advice - including a discussion of
methods to avoid because they may result in your site being banned
from a search engine.
What is disappointing is that the authors fail to explicitly state the
need to stay up to date with developments in search engine
technologies and how they rank websites. A list of websites that
would help the reader keep up to date would have been useful (e.g.
Webmaster World <http://www.webmasterworld.com/> or SearchEngineWatch
<http://www.searchenginewatch.com/>). However, they do have a website
with some information on search engine marketing
<http://www.websurfer-netcafe.com/> and links to resources.
Conclusion
----------
So, would I recommend you buy this book to learn how to plan an online
business and market a website? Whilst I am not aware of any
definitive texts about planning an online business or online
marketing, I would recommend you look for a more up to date title
before you consider this one. In fact, I expect that you will need to
buy two or more, as these topics warrant books of their own. Online
research is also crucial, so read the forums and articles on the sites
mentioned above.
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Duncan Parry is an Editorial manager at Espotting UK, working on the
campaigns of major UK brands. Previously he worked on the link
directory on Lycos UK, specialising in IT, Telecommunications and
Internet categories. You can contact him here
<http://www.duncanparry.co.uk>.
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Related FreePint links:
* Find out more about this book online at the FreePint Bookshelf
<http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf/ebrand.htm>
* Read customer comments and buy this book at Amazon.co.uk
<http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904298540/freepint0c>
or Amazon.com
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904298540/freepint00>
* "Winning E-Brand Strategies" ISBN 1904298540, published
by Spiro Press, written by Martin Brighty, Dean Markham.
* Search for and purchase any book from Amazon via the FreePint
Bookshelf at <http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf>
* Read about other Internet Strategy books on the FreePint Bookshelf
<http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf/strategy.htm>
To propose an information-related book for review, send details
to <bookshelf@freepint.com>.
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<http://www.DigBig.com>
Long URLs get broken in emails and
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Problem solved: paste a long URL into
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>>> FreePint Jobs: 50% listing-fee discount for reg. charities <<<
The listing fee is now halved for registered charities
advertising information-related job vacancies:
<http://www.freepint.com/jobs>
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FEATURE ARTICLE
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/021003.htm#feature>
"Digital Preservation - Barbarians at the Gate"
By Jonathan Crowhurst
There has been much written about the technique and rationale for
digital preservation, and a large number of businesses and cultural
institutions have digital preservation and records management
programmes in place. This article is concerned with the actual dangers
of digital preservation - data loss due to the ever increasing use of
electronic mail and the loss of data due to changes in software and
data storage platforms. The remedies advanced to counter the onset of
a potential "digital dark ages" will be examined.
This article was prompted by a feature published in the science
journal Nature (19 June 2003) <http://www.nature.com>. The authors,
from the University of Texas, contend that the electronic world in
general and email in particular is a very poor medium for preserving
data and point out some serious pitfalls with over reliance on the
technology for historians in several generations time.
Digital Domesday - A Chilling Example
-------------------------------------
The Toronto Star ran a feature (28 July 2003 "The Electronic Genie")
following this publication <http://digbig.com/3cqs> on the subject,
citing the BBC's 1986 Domesday project, which created an electronic
version of William I's famous survey of the country published in 1085,
as an example of the potential for digital disaster. The project cost
GBP2.5 million, but 17 years after its creation the Domesday Book Mark
II cannot be read as the BBC computers used for the project no longer
work and the storage media are unable to be read by current
technology. The original version can still be read in the Public
Record office, 900 years after its creation.
In 2002, Shift.com carried an article by David Emberton in which he
asks: "Two hundred years from now, how will historians assess the
early twenty-first century? They won't, because scarcely anything will
be left to assess. That's right: Welcome, my friends, to the digital
dark age" <http://www.shift.com/content/web/385/1.html>.
The spectre of a "Digital Dark Ages" is not all that new. Stewart
Brand, one of the founders of the Long Now Foundation, wrote in 1998
on the supposed "immortality" of digitised media
<http://www.longnow.org/10klibrary/library.htm> and the long-term
impact on digitisation projects and electronic preservation of the
pace of technological change.
In 1997 at the IFLA Council and General Conference, Terry Kuny
presented a seminal paper <http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla63/63kuny1.pdf>
and among his observations are that "digital collections facilitate
access, but do not facilitate preservation ... Digital places greater
emphasis on the here and now rather than the long term, just in time
information rather than just in case ... the tough task of actually
doing digital preservation (and digital rescue) remains ahead.".
35 Billion Emails a day by 2005
-------------------------------
The authors of the Nature article give some frightening statistics for
the wide spread use of email - the number of corporate mailboxes
worldwide is expected to grow from 131 million in 2001 to 225 million
in 2005 - daily email traffic is anticipated to grow from 9.7 billion
pieces in 2000 to more than 35 billion in 2005. What will happen to
the letters, diaries, and so on which have been the bread and butter
of historians in previous generations? Will it be possible to
reconstruct personal histories in, say 2300, from this electronic
traffic? Stuart Millar wrote in the Guardian (February 28 2002) on the
Digital Preservation Coalition's warning to the UK Government to save
our digital heritage - today's email writers are the Jane Austens (a
prolific letter writer in her day) of the present
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,659208,00.html>.
Except we will still be able to read her correspondence in 200 years
time. He also cites some other interesting examples of technological
"black holes".
93% Of All Information Produced Each Year Is Digital
----------------------------------------------------
That is without the issue of the amount of material actually
published. A project at the University of California aims to quantify
the amount of information published in the world each year
<http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info/>. They
surmise that 93% of the information produced each year is stored in
digital form. Hard drives in stand-alone PCs account for 55% of total
storage shipped each year (1999 figures). The US produces 35% of all
print material, 40% of the images and well over 50% of the digitally
stored content produced in the world each year. This it seems is
without actual records already in digital format. Many of them could
disappear as technology changes.
Dorothy Warner's article "Why do we need to keep it in print? It's on
the web" <http://libr.org/PL/19-20_Warner.html> highlights further
problems. Preserving electronically itself is not the only danger, but
so are people's attitudes. The very title suggests an alarming
attitude towards the preservation of records, social and historical.
The demise of the book has often been predicted since the coming of
the web. To misquote Twain, reports of the book's death have been
greatly exaggerated. Bear in mind too that the world wide web in
particular is only a fraction of material that has actually been
written down.
Other gremlins lie in the sheer pace of technological change. An
article on the evolution of data storage technology appeared in USA
Today looking at some problems
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-01-17-digital_x.htm>. The
issue is not just about the reliability or compatibility of storage
media (punch card, tape, 5 1/4, 3.5, CD-ROMS, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, CDs,
DVDs, etc). For further details look at <http://digbig.com/3cqt>,
a list of links looking at issues such as longevity and permanence.
The other issue is software compatibility - to use a relatively small-
scale example, I am sure at some point we have all had the bother of
trying to get the latest iteration of Word to read Wordperfect. It
might be possible to read old file extensions, but often all you get
is a load of gobbledygook without the original formatting preserved.
This is one of the issues vexing digital archivists as they try and
make preserved records readable for future software iterations. It
seems that software versions change every 18 months - witness the
various versions of Windows which have been released over the past 10
years. An interesting review of these can be found here
<http://members.fortunecity.com/pcmuseum/windows.htm>. The Rosetta
Stone and the Vindolanda writing tablets have lasted thousands of
years and can still be deciphered. Will the same be said about the
records we are archiving digitally today.
Solutions
---------
Fortunately a number of opportunities to correct this problem are
available for either current digital archives or as new digital
records are created.
In 1996 "Preserving Digital Information" was published by the United
States Commission on Preservation and Access and the Research
Libraries Group, whose brief was to ensure continued access to records
stored in digital form indefinitely and consists of members of
industry, the heritage sector, publishers, academics and congress.
Their Final Report <http://www.rlg.org/ArchTF/> highlights the
importance of a long-term strategy in ensuring digital archives remain
accessible.
Johan Mannerheim suggests some interesting ideas and asks where the
task of digital preservation falls - do we take an individual or
institutional responsibility for preserving digital archives?
<http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla66/papers/158-157e.htm>.
A paper by Hodge also looks at some long-term solutions and best
practice <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january00/01hodge.html>, while this
article <http://www.cilip.org.uk/update/issues/may02/article2may.html>
defines several techniques of digital preservation:
1.Technology preservation - maintaining and updating the old
technologies - not acceptable in terms of time or cost in the long
term
2. Refreshing - the copying of the bit stream from one medium to
another without changing format
3. Migration - changing data to new formats which can have the
unfortunate consequence of losing formatting if the new does not
support the old
4. Emulation - this a way of preserving data where data is
converted into a digital bytestream, bypassing hardware, and emulation
re-renders the data. The legality of these is open to question,
however. Emulation may possibly rescue the Domesday Project, as these
articles explain <http://digbig.com/3ctt> and
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,871091,00.html>.
Two other potential aids are XML and LOCKSS (lots of copies keep stuff
safe), for storing electronic journals.
XML is eXtensible Mark Up Language, a simple, flexible text format
which enables data to be transferred widely and was originally
developed for electronic publishing. Further details can be found here
<http://www.w3.org/XML/> but a full study is outside the scope of
this article. Suffice to say it looks like it should have great
potential for ensuring that digital documents can be read in the
future.
LOCKSS has been developed by Vicky Reich and David Rosenthal of
Stanford University
<http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june01/reich/06reich.html>. Their site for
potential users of the project can be found here
<http://lockss.stanford.edu/>.
Conclusion
----------
The Millennium Bug turned out to be one of the biggest non-events in
history. The loss of data and history through over reliance on
computer technology for preservation and storage is a far more serious
issue as human culture will lose something of itself. We need to be
thinking outside the box. We need to increase awareness among
businesses and institutions who are storing data and records
electronically, among software and hardware vendors whose only goal is
the short term. Otherwise it will be easier for historians to
reconstruct the world 100 years ago than those historians 100 years
hence reconstructing the 21st century.
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Jonathan Crowhurst is currently a Masters student in Library and
Information Studies at City University, and has previously worked
at the information service of a leading city law firm, as well as
in insurance and market research. His first degree is in ancient
history and archaeology.
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