This atricle about the fragility of electronic and technology-dependent information is a couple of years old, but it’s a good overview of one of my primary areas of interest within my new field. It’s actually a big topic among librarians and archivists, but I don’t think it can be emphasized too much.

Obviously, the big stuff is going to be preserved. Things like the video of the first moonwalk or of the World Trade Center bombing are in no real danger. Original masters of Disney movies will continue to be lovingly stored on their little satin pillows under perfect archival conditions for the foreseeable future. But an amazing volume of less visible material (like the census data mentioned in the link, or the first generation of websites, for example) is at considerable risk. This is the kind of stuff I’m interested in, things like snapshots of the web at a given point in time, or recordings of full days (or even just hours) of commercial broadcasting, with commercials and voiceovers included. As usual, my excitement is over that ephemeral, everyday kind of material, which is also why I’m so obsessed with the history of supermarkets and other commercial/retail architecture.

I’ll spare you the details of my home media preservation projects other than to say that backing up everything I have on magnetic media (e.g. cassette tapes) is priority number one. It’s kind of sad, though, that the very technology that made it possible for my generation to preseve so much information also makes all that extra information so much more unstable.

It was a frosty 48 degrees in the living room this morning, after Herb’s temporary boiler fix broke in the middle of the night (when it was somewhere in the mid-teens). He’s back now, having finally acquired the necessary replacement part, so I’m hoping I’ll stop being cold soon.

Yes, the heating repairman and I are on a first-name basis now. Remember that, guys: the secret to establishing a succesful relationship is calling back after the first encounter.

Driving down I-40 between Winston-Salem and Kernersville today, I saw this electronic message warning me about potential inauguration traffic next Tuesday.

On I-95.

In Virginia.

Three hundred miles away.

These signs were repeated all the way to Durham, at least. This is sort of like driving on the 101 in San Francisco and being warned repeatedly about a  potential upcoming traffic jam on Highway 99 in Bakersfield.

Way back in 1982, I bought my first VCR at Circuit City. It was a Sanyo Beta format machine, and it was my high school graduation present from my parents. That might have been the only Circuit City shopping experience I was ever relatively satisfied with.

Circuit City has for years topped my list of worst chain retailers in the US, beating out both Rite-Aid and Albertsons. How they managed to stave off liquidation as long as they did is a mystery to me. Circuit City did everything wrong. The sales staff were like vultures (until you needed them), their selection was poor, and even if you could find a product you wanted, the floor model would invariably be the only one in the entire store, and this didn’t just apply to items that were on sale.

Then, a few years ago, they made no secret of the fact that they were firing their highest paid and most knowledgeable workers, none of whom were earning many gold stars to begin with. That was pretty much the last straw. It seemed every time I walked out of a Circuit City, I was pissed off. I soon stopped walking in to begin with. I don’t even look at their flyers in the Sunday paper anymore; in fact, tossing them aside became something of an amusing little ritual for me.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had this reaction. Economic implications and sympathy for the workers who will lose their jobs aside, Circuit City’s meltdown couldn’t happen to a more deserving company.

Robert Hazard
Escalator of Life, 1982