From: "Barb Beck" <>
>
> Many of you guys are not collecting this stuff for short term. Just make
> sure that somewhere you archive your information in both printed form and
> comma delimited files so that they can be retrieved in the future with yo=
ur
> sound collection.
>
> To computer people the lifetime of something useful is only a matter of a
> few years in their way of thinking. They live in a world where their
> complete computer education must be relearned every 4 or 5 years. They l=
ive
> in a world of disposable projects and equipment and far too often disposa=
ble
> people who cannot keep up with the frantic pace of change. Often their
> mind seems not to comprehend something that might be useful 30 to 100 yea=
rs
> or more down the line. Even if they realize that they also realize that f=
or
> the majority of their users that is not the case and with the majority li=
es
> profits. My guess is that your stored information in database form will
> not outlive your CDs which people are so worried about having to redo eve=
ry
> so often by a very large factor. Remember too that the best guy today c=
an
> be bankrupt next year or bought out and product dropped fast. At times i=
n
> the computer world products survive based on who owns them not on merit.
> I would hate to see information or sounds any of you have collected
> disappear.
I completely agree. Yet I see folks binding themselves tighter and
tighter to computers. I try and keep as much of my sound recording
system as possible independent of computers. I assume everything I have
in computer form will vanish tomorrow, and I could be right.
I would add that trusting the sounds themselves only to computers is
also a big problem. Their formats can go away just as quickly as
databases. Keep your sounds in several formats. Including ones not
computer based, like audio CD. Audio CD may go away too, but not as
suddenly as a computer format. It of course helps if your originals are
archival, not some computer hardware...
The insensitivity to end users has been increasing massively in recent
years. Don't expect those folks to be helpful to you. I've 50 year old
film cameras that work perfectly. I've a digital camera that cost $5000
new just over ten years ago. If I can still use it in a few years I'll
be amazed. It's fine, the software is being abandoned. If I could get
decent film at reasonable prices I'd be real tempted to go back to film.
Walt
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