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September 21, 2004
Preserving Photos for Millennia
From the October 2004 FYI/Digital Archives section of Popular Science:
Question: Is it true that CDs can disintegrate after 20 years? How long will my digital photos last?
Answer: Yes, CDs sometimes disintegrate within a decade or two, but with proper handling and use of the higher-quality discs, your digital photo album should last a century. The breakdown of discs, known as CD rot, begins with poor care. You can avoid it by using CDs coated with gold rather than the more common silver. Gold doesn't oxidize, which makes these discs more durable. If you want to save your photos for, say, a millennium, your options start to thin., While they won't be able to store your digital photographs, HD (high-density) Rosetta nickel chips can fit 196,000 pages' worth of physical images or text onto their two-inch-square surface -- each page reduced to a micron in width -- and researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have estimated that the chips should last at least 1,000 years.
Using HD Rosetta chips, a company called Team Encounter is offering customers the opportunity to send a photo of their choice, along with a short message, into space onboard a solar sail spacecraft - for one low price of $25!
Note: direct link to story not found. See print issue for more.
Cindy
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Comments
Paper. I'm convinced that quality archival paper, printed with archival ink and properly stored is *by far* the best way to preserve photos. I have family snopshots going back nearly sixty years that were factory printed and have shown remarkably little wear even after being stuffed in my Dads gooey old photo albums all my life. This only gets better with good paper and ink.
Digital media isn't a long term solution. Try watching those family Betamax movies or reading that 5.25 inch floppy. As someone who has gone from vinyl, to 8-track (not really, except in my '74 Vega), to cassette, to CD (with a brief DAT and mini-disc interlude) and now DVD I have little faith in the latest and greatest archival media. I have lots of faith in paper, ask Guttenberg or Shakespeares heirs :)
Brain matter deposited by: Al on September 21, 2004 6:33 PM