Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!hubcap!gatech!ukma!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!uccba!uceng!dmocsny
From: dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Hundreds of books on an optical disk
Summary: fast fingers
Message-ID: <406@uceng.UC.EDU>
Date: 10 Nov 88 06:30:54 GMT
References: <0XMtqn087E-0A14EYk@andrew.cmu.edu> <344@uceng.UC.EDU> <1803@garth.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of Cincinnati, College of Engg.
Lines: 26

In article <1803@garth.UUCP>, fenwick@garth.UUCP (Stephen Fenwick) writes:
> One of my primary tools is a 14th Ed., 1929 Encyclopaedia Britannica.
> If it is true that the life of a CD-ROM is less than 50 years, I would
> now be seeing data loss.  This is unacceptable.

This is also incomprehensible. Do we imagine that in fifty years we will
be unable to create arbitrarily many backups of important information?
I suppose some proponents of copyright law would like to jeopardize your
data security, but this will not be a technological problem. Indeed, it
would not have to be a problem right now if the WORM people could get
their standards together.

Unfortunately, many recent books were not printed on acid-free paper.
And few books are of sufficient quality to stand up to serious use.
Many libraries' collections are crumbling away. We must archive this
knowledge to electronic form soon or lose it forever.

Books certainly work well when you don't need many of them, or when you
refer to passages so frequently that you might as well leave them open
on your desk. Nobody is trying to do away with books altogether (yet).
When you need occasional access to information stuck in a huge
collection (system docs, parts catalogs, technical literature) CD-ROM
makes sense. As display and storage technologies mature, electronic
publishing will spread.

Dan Mocsny