Obsolescence of Digital Formats

                In 1995, Jeff Rothenberg published an article explaining the difficulties surrounding the use of digital media in the future, and the potential loss of data.  Rothenberg cites the near loss of several groups of data, including the 1960 U.S. Census data and the P.O.W. and M.I.A. records for the Vietnam War era as examples of the danger of format obsolescence in record keeping (p. 42).

                According to Rothenberg, the threat to digital documents is threefold.  Digital media, particularly magnetic media, is fragile.  Data on discs can be altered by magnetic fields (p. 42).  Hardware, such as disk drives, becomes obsolete quickly.  Attempting to maintain old technologies is futile (p. 47).  Interpretation of data on a medium requires the appropriate programs and software (p. 43).

                There is the option of translating data to new formats.  However, Rothenberg asserts that changes in formats have the potential to change or lost data (p. 45).

                In his 2010 article, David Rosenthal suggests that format obsolescence is not quite the problem Rothenberg made it out to be fifteen years ago.  Rather than a natural evolution, incompatibility is a “result of deliberate decisions by software developers”.  Maturing markets and the web have stopped format obsolescence (section Format obsolescence, para. 2).  Rather than worrying about reformatting digital documents multiple times, Rosenthal recommends three principles to deal digital documentation.

1.       Store only essential data.

2.       Perform only essential tasks.

3.       Delay performing tasks as long as possible. (section Alternate model, para. 2)

The final principle should be heavily considered by any archivist planning on digitizing a collection.  First, delaying tasks reduces costs as the cost of technology historically drops overtime.  Second, the quality of technology increases overtime (section Delay tasks as long as possible, para. 2).  Waiting to perform tasks also allows the maturing market to stabilize, making it easier to estimate the permanency of a format.

Works Cited

Rosenthal, David S.H. (2010). Format obsolescence: assessing the threat and the defenses. Library Hi Tech, 28(2), 195-210. Retrieved from Emerald database.

Rothenberg, Jeff (1995). Ensuring the longevity of digital documents. Scientific American, 272(1), 42-47.

Lauren Zemaitis