I've been asked to come up with a reasonably-priced solution for a non-profit historical society to convert and store paper documents, sound, and film recordings.
Transfer to digital format is *not* the problem; I'm concerned about long-term digital storage and eventual retrieval, possibly years after I'm involved.
Some background: I'm the IT department for two small offices -- including nightly and bi-weekly backups -- and this is what got me in trouble, here: Someone in the group heard I knew about data storage, and since I was a volunteer with the group anyway, could I coordinate with the team that's doing the actual conversion.
My experience is in 'Backup' only; Two years (in the offices) is the max we hold onto anything. I don't know about long-term physical degradation of digital media. Nor do I know much about how to prepare information for retrieval many years from now.
I *am* aware that the paper records and analog recordings we're using won't be destroyed after conversion, and that they offer the best chance of survival in, say, a hundred years from now.
But what can I do about the digital media? Storage strategies? Do we archive computer equipment alongside the media?
Some references would be appreciated.
Thanks!
