(+) Is Your CD-ROM Data Disappearing?

Genealogists are generally concerned with long-term data preservation. A lot of genealogists believe that the only method of preserving data is to print the information on paper. Yet, many of us have handled old pieces of paper that are decaying, crumbling, or fading to the point that the information is not readable. In fact, most paper manufactured in the past 75 years or so contains acids that will hasten the deterioration of the information you wish to preserve.

Even worse, the inks and laser printer toner we use today will fade in a few years, even if the paper survives. I already have papers in my filing cabinet I wrote or photocopied 25 or 30 years ago that have faded quite a bit. Some are already difficult to read because of faded ink or photocopy toner. Those papers probably will be unreadable in another 25 or 30 years.

As we have seen recently in several places around the world, paper is especially fragile. Paper documents are easily destroyed by fires, floods, earthquakes, mold, mildew, or building collapse. On several occasions, valuable paper documents have been lost forever due to simple burst water pipes.

In archivist circles, the preferred solution is to “digitize data so as to preserve it.” However, even digitizing requires some serious precautions and planning. In the past few years, the common choice for long-term digital data storage was CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disks. However, the technology has only appeared in the past two decades; so, we do not yet know if these devices will store data for a century or more. Some studies indicate that the information may not last that long. In fact, there is proof that some CD-ROM disks may not reliably last even one decade! Perhaps one out of every ten disks will become unreadable within ten years with a higher percentage suffering the same fate over 20 or 30 years.