Current digitization standards may be a VERY unstable and insecure format, with a strong liklihood to become obsolete not only in the LONG term, but in the short term, at the rate computer capabilities and improvements are proceeding. It is hard to fault a cautious archival administrator for lack of jumping into an expensive project of “preserving” the contents of their archives, when the entire COSTLY, and labor intensive project may soon result in obsolete storage media.
One has only to look at the Smithsonian’s program of digitzing several hundred thousands of aviation and space images in its archives, onto 12 inch laser disc media. It was a very labor intensive and costly program which produced a product that was obsolete soon after completion, with rapidly advancing computer technology and hardware.
I have some sets of these images which can be viewed on a large TV or computer screen, with an obsolete laser disc player. Such players had an average price of $600-$700 when new. Surviving laser disc players, that have now gone the way of 8-track audio tape cassettes and players, can still be found (for a limited time, I’m certain) being liquidated on popular auction sites for $10 or Less. I purchased an excellent laser disc player for $15 and often view these wonderful, and often rare, reference images. They are on several 12 inch, two sided discs which can hold nearly 200,000 images Each.
When I spoke to someone in the Smithsonian archives, they said the entire digitization program to that, then, state of the art, standard, was such a disaster, that they had no plans to transfer those hundreds of thousands of digital images to CDs or DVDs or any other current media.
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