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