Thursday, July 24, 2008

Digital NASA Archives, or The Importance of the Past

The most unsettling for me is the last one, though, because the slow erosion comes from knowing what you knew to be true yesterday is now wiped clean today. There are only so many days you can question your own sanity before it slips away.

Now with that big build up, you'd think I was about to tell you that the government banned all digital deletions. Now exactly. Instead, NASA partnered with the Internet Archive to create one large repository of archival pictures the organization.

In this day and age (says the old guy), it's more important than ever to create a sustainable -- and searchable -- index of what happened yesterday. The Internet Archive, a non-profit organization tasked with doing that, is just one of the many groups seeking out ways to keep a digital record of what was once written.

Sounds a little goofy, I know, but the reality is that people are constantly trying to scrub the past: change a quote here, touch up a photo there and shift this thought a little more to the left (or right).

It's a slippery slope, though. If you alter enough little ideas and thoughts, eventually you have one giant boondoggle on your hand and nobody knows what to believe anymore. (Is it real or is it Memorex?)

Which brings it back to NASA and the Internet Archive. The more companies and agencies embrace this digital Library of Alexandria, the better off we will be because we can "trust" the screen better if we know that what we see and read today will still be there tomorrow.

Posted By Brad King at 03:18 PM
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