SWJ: praise given and reviews (merged)

[John T. Fishel]

will anyone bite?

Way to go, Sam.

Cheers

JohnT

[Bill Moore]

Sam,

I like your proposal, but it sounds like quite an undertaking. For those who are vetted academia it may be easier to develop business rules where they submit their documents to a university librarian knowledge manager, but what about the wealth of of other knowledge out there in e-article type format (for lack of a better word)? I imagine we have the same challenge with on-line magazines as we do with on-line studies and books.

Correct if I'm wrong, but I heard e-archiving isn't exactly easy either. One of the things I read was that the older e-documents can't be accessed by newer forms or versions of software (the pace of software evolution has appeared to slow, but I imagine over time it will still be an issue). The medium you store on whether is a server, floppy disk, CD, etc. is subject to corruption/damage. Finally, I "heard" that electronic media is not stable over long time periods?

That's why I'm espeically fond of your 10 hard copy suggestion .

[selil]

Correct if I'm wrong, but I heard e-archiving isn't exactly easy either. One of the things I read was that the older e-documents can't be accessed by newer forms or versions of software (the pace of software evolution has appeared to slow, but I imagine over time it will still be an issue). The medium you store on whether is a server, floppy disk, CD, etc. is subject to corruption/damage. Finally, I "heard" that electronic media is not stable over long time periods?

That's why I'm espeically fond of your 10 hard copy suggestion .

From the people I've talked to they say you are absolutely correct. Entire electronic libraries have become unusable due to proprietary formats and systems. Updates can make systems incompatible or corrupt storage mediums.

Certain types of storage medium are effected by the magnetic field of the earth. Optical storage media can be subject to "rot". There are lots of solutions, but even the library of congress has changed it's mind several time about archival methods.

There is the "way back machine" or the "internet archive" but it has trouble keeping pace with the storage requirements.

[jmm99]

similar to Library of Congress for works which are formally registered.

I don't know whether SWJ is formally registered - it is copyrighted.

Anyway, submission of materials from any electronic media should be trivial - and, if its survival is the only question, should be relatively cheap. Sam can answer the technical questions as to how that could be best done - since he is our "smarts" in that area.

In a sense, Google Books is attempting something of the same for hardcopy. But, that is an expensive scan process.

In essence, what I would like as a end result would be a Google search which would be permanent - no dead links.

Hey Sam, now we know what you and I can do when we grow up - But, where do we get the few billion needed to initiate the project. I know !!! - Al Gore - it worked for Google