15.503 archaic formats and electronic palimpsests

From: Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty (w.mccarty@btinternet.com)
Date: Wed Feb 13 2002 - 03:11:22 EST

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                   Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 15, No. 503.
           Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   <http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
                  <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>

             Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 08:05:57 +0000
             From: Patricia Galloway <galloway@gslis.utexas.edu>
             Subject: Re: 15.501 a poisoned e-chalice?

    Francois' question raises yet another vexed question for e-archivists to
    solve! But seriously, folks: digital preservation archivists are working
    on ways to handle both archaic formats and the complex intellectual
    property issues that cling to electronic resources; but the short answer
    is that most archives would not accept custody of the hardware and if
    they did would not engage to keep it running, so the question of
    residual bits on hard drives seldom comes up. But certainly those hard
    drives can be real palimpsests, which digital forensics specializes in
    analyzing, as is happening as we speak with certain Enron and Arthur
    Anderson equipment.
    Pat Galloway
    Graduate School of Library and Information Science
    University of Texas-Austin



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