From a Master in Library Science, records manager, and enthusiastic genealogist
That by-line is to say - don't take anything in this post as gospel. These are just what I have been taught, and what I have found works for me. That doesn't mean it's the end-all-be-all. Just recommendations.
One of my favorite facebook groups (and one of the only reasons I am still on facebook to be honest) is Random Act of Genealogical Kindness (RAoGK) - USA. It's a place where family historians can ask questions about records they are looking for, solicit help on brick walls they are trying to break down, post interesting genealogy related posts, etc. A post this morning prompted this blog post.
The question (or rather observation) was about long-term storage options for genealogical information. The poster says "One of the bigger problems I've come up on is the problem of long term storage. Most of the people did their family research a log time ago, years or decades ago. One guy inherited all of his fathers work that is still all in loose-leaf paper in file folders. Another saved her work in a genealogy software that is no longer supported.
"This is a problem that many industries and libraries are struggling with. You can't trust Ancestry to be around in 10 years. You can't trust a hard drive because it relies on a USB connection with future computer may not have. [MacBook Air, anyone?] You can't even really trust hard copies because fire is a thing."
Let's talk about that.
First, my qualifications.
I have a masters degree in Library Science, with a specialization in digitization and archival studies. I had entire classes on the question of long-term storage.
I have worked as a records manager for 2+ years, where I deal primarily with electronic records, and ensuring those records are in a permanent, archival format.
I work in digitization.
Now, the best practices that I have found through my education and experience.
- records should be stored in no less than two places, ideally not in the same place (e.g. a copy on the east coast, and a copy on the west coast, or a copy on a cloud and a copy on a hard drive)
- a cloud service is a great option, as this reduces the storage capacity needed on your computer, but SHOULD NOT be the only place the records are stored. What if the cloud runs out of space? What if the cloud service shuts down? What if you don't have an internet connection? (I can attest to that last one)
- hardware typically has a relatively short shelf life, so needs to be updated periodically. Hard drives last about 10 years, CDs and DVDs last about 5 years. So if you store your records on hardware, you need to make sure to create new copies of the records before the hardware is no longer accessible.
- if you choose to use a hard drive to store your records, a solid state drive (i.e. doesn't have any moving parts like a fan) tend to be the most reliable
- as noted above, technology is changing so quickly that the ability to read certain hardware is changing just as quickly. Good news is that data storage is becoming cheaper the better our technology becomes.
- download the actual images of off ancestry and save them some where else. Ideally, pdf or tiff/jpg format is the best (pdf is really just made up tiffs or jpgs)
Short story: Don't just rely on one storage source for any records that you really care about. Keeping the records in two or even three places means you can be doubley confident that they won't be lost to a disaster.
What not to do
Here's a few anecdotes from my own life of what NOT to do for preserving records. Perhaps this should be another qualification - I've done it wrong so many times that I have learned how to do it right.
Anecdote 1: My husband made fun of me the other day for pulling out my 1TB (which isn't a lot in today's world) external hard disk drive (i.e. not a solid state) that I bought on sale! for $200 like 8 years ago. For context, an 8 TB external hard drive sells for around $150 today. He made fun of me even more when I couldn't find the plug (!) so I couldn't even read the disc. Lesson: Don't lose the very-specific, can't be easily replaced cord that is the single way to access your records.
Anecdote 2: I found all of these great records for my Ladd family that I was researching. Then things happened and took me away from genealogy for a while. When I got back into it, some of the links for some of the records that I had found were dead. (I've also been hearing a lot of complaints about the access restrictions changing, so the records no longer being available like they used to be)
Lesson: DOWNLOAD THE ACTUAL IMAGES. Also CITE YOUR SOURCES. Luckily, I had recorded the sources well so I was able to track down the images again.
My current practices
I'm going to talk specifically about my current practices with my digitization business.
The best way I can think to do this is step-by-step.
I take the images with my professional grade DSLR camera. Once I get home from the archives, I download the images on to my computer and edit them.
After I edit the images, I upload them to a Google drive folder. This is what I send to clients. I keep both unedited and edited images. *The images are now in two places: my computer's hard drive and Google drive
I transfer the images to a solid state external hard drive. *The images are now in three places: my computer's hard drive, Google drive, and an external hard drive
About every 6 months, I burn DVDs of the images that I have taken in the past 6 months (I use DVDs because DVDs have a larger size capacity) At the same time, I delete the images off of Google drive and my computer's hard drive *The records are now in two places: an external hard drive and a DVD
Note: ideally, the client also download a copy of the images, or I sent them a DVD of the images
Now, as the records are not my own, I feel 2 copies of the images are sufficient. I keep 2 copies in case clients come back to me and some how lost access to their images (hasn't happened yet, but better safe than sorry)
Resources
https://www.archives.gov/recor
No comments:
Post a Comment