The Future of Our Past 

     We were going to set aside an article by Lynn Vincent...until we came to her conclusion. 

     "While paper can survive for centuries, digital records last only a decade or two at best. Archivists must wage a rolling battle against 'bit rot' ... file corruption and physical failure and software obsolescence, even as they preserve new material. 

     "Personal archives are also become far less discoverable. Seventy years from now, who will stumble upon important letters in great grandma's attic? She will likely have used email, her missives lost forever to the digital grave. Who will stumble upon our records, imprisoned as most are on laptops, smartphones, cloud services and lapsed subscription appts? 

     "I fear most of us are irrationally optimistic that what matters will somehow survive. I also fear human history could turn increasingly sterile as archivists preserve records of what happened while neglecting records of what it was like to be there when it did." 

The Days After 9/11

     "I didn't want us to lose our soul. I wanted, as we defended our freedoms, I wanted people to remember how precious they are."    

     - Former President George W. Bush