7 min.
Can we store data forever?
INSIDE THE Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., there’s a living time capsule. The massive storage facility, run by the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, is filled with wax cylinders, record players, and other pieces of dated audiovisual equipment. Some might see it as a junkyard of outdated technology, but Stephanie Barb likes to call this place the “land of lost toys.”
“We used to play records all the time,” says Barb, the deputy director of IT service operations at the Library of Congress. Now, owning a record player is almost a whimsy.
When machines become obsolete, the data they hold can be lost as well. Software and hardware fade out of general use as newer products and services replace them. It’s one of the several roadblocks technicians and archivists…
