[LINK] Looking for some advice from the link 'brain'

Karl Auer kauer at biplane.com.au
Sun Apr 1 11:19:53 AEST 2007


Hi Robert.
> One of the issues I am confronting is long term document storage
[...]
> Given that our use of MS Office is not very sophisticated, it is my 
> preferred intention at this point to switch from MS Office to 
> OpenOffice.Org.

Yes - but only if you are certain that all the old docs will convert on
OO. This means all the fonts, all the graphics, all the formatting.
Unless only the text is needed. Otherwise you may end up down the track
with documents that unexpectedly cannot be converted, and no way to
convert it easily.

>  I would not convert all the old docs to ODF, but only do 
> so when there is a need to access them.

See above: If you are serious about this, you would certainly convert as
needed, but also have a program of continuous conversion in place to
catch up, so that within the foreseeable future all your docs are
converted.

> non-technical  (i.e. management oriented) paper on why an open document 
> format is a necessity to ensure that we can read old documents at some 
> arbitrary point in the future.

It's not just the format, it's also the software and the hardware to run
it. OpenOffice is not a solution as such, because it too will eventually
disappear. There is no easy answer, but the answer depends on how long
you want the digital stuff to survive.

Here is a good exploration of the issues facing digital storage:

http://e-collection.ethbib.ethz.ch/show?type=diss&nr=13434&part=fulltext

Basically it boils down to:

 - keep multiple copies
 - in very safe places
 - copy continuously
 - convert to newer technologies continuously (possibly as you copy)
 - expect to have three technologies operational simultaneously

Do this and you don't need to keep hardware and software indefinitely;
also you get around the finite lifetime of the storage medium.

Regards, K.
 
-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/                  +61-428-957160 (mob)




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