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t's presentation from SAA 2009 Session 406: Seeing the Forest: Environmental Sustainability and Archives
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The Environmental Sustainability of
Migration and Conversion Strategies
for Electronic Records
@terryx666 ♥ www.facebook.com/terryx666 ♥ terryx.wordpress.com
or . . .
246 $a Digital Information and the Environment $g (a cautionary tale)
This we know... the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to earth. All things are connected, like the blood which connects one family. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life - he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
Chief Seattle, 1854
The Four Conditions of Sustainable Systems
What is Sustainability?
To become a sustainable society we must...
1. eliminate our contribution to the progressive buildup of substances extracted from the Earth's crust (for example, heavy metals and fossil fuels)
What is Sustainability?
To become a sustainable society we must...
2. eliminate our contribution to the progressive buildup of chemicals and compounds produced by society (for example, dioxins, PCBs, and DDT )
What is Sustainability?
To become a sustainable society we must...
3. eliminate our contribution to the progressive physical degradation and destruction of nature and natural processes (for example, over harvesting forests and paving over critical wildlife habitat); and
What is Sustainability?
To become a sustainable society we must...
4. eliminate our contribution to conditions that undermine people’s capacity to meet their basic human needs (for example, unsafe working conditions and not enough pay to live on).
The Natural Step (http://www.naturalstep.og/en)
What Sustainability is Not
• Anti-technology• A source of division• A secret wealth transfer mechanism• Cook-Booky• An unnecessary burden that interferes
with real work
Vectors for Digital Systems
• Environmental
• Recordkeeping
• Technological
Environmental Vectors
• Energy• Component Composition• Media Composition• Manufacturing • Component and Media
Recycling
Must. Have. Power.
What’s in there, anyway?
Built to Last?
Productivity at what cost?
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink
Recordskeeping Vectors
• Retention• Record Copy• Access• Preservation• Creation format
Length Matters
Lots of Copies Keep Servers Stuffed
Connected or Topless?
Nothing Lasts Forever
Sumerian Beer Recipe: 5000 years
Vinland Map:
500 years
Moon Landing Tapes: Whoops!
Born Digital or Naturalized?
Technology Vectors
• CHANGE!• Techno-determinism• Physical Limitations• Costs• Replacement Rates
“Change is Certain, (Progress is Not)”
Technology doesn’t always have an answer. Or at least a
good one.
Physical limitations
Costs
Machines▼
▲Energy
Replacement rates
Migration
Migration: The process of moving data from one information system or storage medium to another to ensure continued access to the information as the system or medium becomes obsolete or degrades over time.
Stale? Is this the day-old media store?
At some point you just have to give in
Conversion
Conversion: A process of changing something's form or function; Conversion includes scanning paper documents to create digital images or rekeying paper text into a computer.
Stuff comes to you. Even in the pond.
Making it Last
Sustainability and Cost Benefit Planning
• Sustainability as one key panning component
• Deferred and hidden costs• Appropriateness• Needs versus wants• People versus machines
sustainability in planning
Do it for the kids!
Is this the most appropriate way to get things done?
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed” Ghandi
Man versus Machine
"In the modern world, the most dangerous form of determinism is the technological phenomenon. It is not a question of getting rid of it, but, by an act of freedom, of transcending it. How is this to be done? I do not yet know.” Jacques Ellul in the Technological Society (1954)
Activist Archivists
Bottom Line it
• Sustainability is a required and important part of migration/conversion planning
• Archivists are making choices that directly effect the environmental health of the planet
• Migration and conversion practices can become more sustainable
• Archivists cannot defer their responsibility to make sustainable choices
the future When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my
answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.
Paul Hawken, May 2009, http://bit.ly/wqWK3
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