Information Research Weblog

Just back from Murcia, Spain, and the Scout Report draws my attention to a report from the Council on Library and Information Resources on New-Model Scholarship: How Will It Survive? by Abby Smith. The 'new model' is defined as: "specifically, the variety of Web sites and other desktop digital objects that faculty and graduate students are creating that fall somewhere short of “published” but are worthy of access into the future." Three examples are given, the History of Recent Science and Technology site at the Dibner Institute, the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, and Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia. The key issue dealt with by the report is the problem of ensuring that these sites are permanently archived for future use.

'Permanent' archiving is an interesting issue - especially in the digital world. Physical objects can survive centuries, but we are uncertain as to how long electronic documents can survive. Much depends not only on the storage medium, but also on the technology for 'reading' and displaying the record. I can no longer use 5.25" discs on my computer - and don't know anyone who can. So - what I wrote in the past now has to be scanned if I wish to put it on my Web site.

And how long will Information Research and its related Web sites, including my personal Web site, survive my disappearance from the scene? I am in the process of trying to ensure that the journal survives, but even that is at risk, given the apparent lack of interest in its survival from the LIS and information systems research communities.

The one thing of which we can be sure is that nothing is for ever!