> As far as electronic formats go, I think PDF is as good as
> anything -- except maybe plain ASCII text, which is not
> nearly as useable (and doesn't allow diagrams,
> mathematical equations, non-English letters, etc).
There is no requirement that plain text be limited to the ASCII character set repertoire. Although once they were almost synonymous, that is no longer the case [1]. Plain text can encompass anything and everything in the Unicode character set. That includes non-Roman scripts, mathematical symbols, yada, yada, yada.
-- Michael
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_text
# Michael Doran, Systems Librarian
# University of Texas at Arlington
# 817-272-5326 office
# 817-688-1926 mobile
# [log in to unmask]
# http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Jonathan Rochkind
> Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 9:13 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Durability of PDFs
>
> The bet is that PDFs are so popular that _someone_ (the archival
> community if no-one else, but probably someone else) will ensure that
> they continue to be readable somehow.
>
> These are real non-trivial issues in electronic archiving
> though, issues
> that the archival community. It is generally a safe assumption that
> good electronic archiving over the decades-and-more term
> requires some
> regular attention by an electronic archivist to make sure that files
> remain readable, and are converted to new formats when necessary. As
> well as attention to avoiding actual bit-level corruption of
> files. You
> can't neccesarily just dump files on a HD and ignore them and expect
> they'll be readable in 100 years, that much is true -- and
> true pretty
> much regardless of particular electronic format you choose.
>
> As far as electronic formats go, I think PDF is as good as
> anything --
> except maybe plain ASCII text, which is not nearly as useable (and
> doesn't allow diagrams, mathematical equations, non-English letters,
> etc). I don't know why you're colleague has decided that
> "30-40 years"
> is the horizon after which PDF specifically will become "unreadable",
> this seems like just a wild guess to me, but it would be
> interesting to
> see if he has any particular evidence to back up this claim.
>
> So there are real issues with electronic archiving, but
> unless they lead
> you to refuse to accept electronic submissions at all, you're
> just going
> to have to deal with them, it's not really an issue of PDF
> specifically,
> but it is true that "just dump files on a HD and forget about
> them and
> assume they'll be readable in 100 years" is not a particularly safe
> electronic archiving strategy.
>
> Jonathan
>
> Mike Taylor wrote:
> > Dear CODE4LIB colleagues,
> >
> > In one of my alternative incarnations, I am a zoological taxonomist.
> > One of the big issues for taxonomy right now is whether to accept as
> > nomenclaturally valid papers that are published only in electronic
> > form, i.e. not printed on paper by a publisher.
> >
> > In a discussion of this matter, a colleague has claimed:
> >
> >
> >> [PDF files will not become unreadable] in the next 30-40 years.
> >> Possibly not in the 20 years that will follow. After that,
> when only
> >> 30-year and older documents are in the PDF format, the danger will
> >> increase that this information will not be readable any more. It is
> >> generally considered as quite unlikely that PDF will be readable in
> >> 100 years.
> >>
> >
> > I would appreciate any comments that anyone on this list has on the
> > likelihood that PDF will be unreadable in 100 years.
> >
> > Many thanks,
> >
> > _/|_
> ___________________________________________________________________
> > /o ) \/ Mike Taylor <[log in to unmask]>
> http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
> > )_v__/\ "Can't someone act COMPLETELY OUT OF CHARACTER
> without arousing
> > suspicion?" -- Bob the Angry Flower, www.angryflower.com
> >
> >
>
|
