Comments on: Trying to Find an Article on Data Preservation

Question: Trying to Find an Article on Data Preservation

rollick — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:40:37 -0800

What article did I read on preserving personal data?

About one or two years ago I read a blog post -- I am almost certain it was on livejournal -- about preserving your data with an eye to the future. It included advice like "print anything important with a laser printer on heavy paper stock" and "save your documents as plain text files, with at most basic markup" (not actual quotes).

I liked it because, iirc, it was generally aimed, and had some interesting information on the history of paper and rates of degeneracy for different media.

Does anyone know what this was, or any similar articles?

By: pb

pb — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:45:33 -0800

I don't remember the LJ post, but on the similar articles front there's a good site about Personal Archiving by the LOC that I ran across about a year ago.

By: Zed

Zed — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:23:37 -0800

Charlie Stross suggests much the same here but it's probably not what you're thinking of.

Flouting the plain text recommendation, of interest is paperback.

By: zaxour

zaxour — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:46:45 -0800

There is some really interesting discussion at CNet forums

By: rollick

rollick — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:41:07 -0800

Thanks guys, those are pretty helpful suggestions.