Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery
'We're Going Backward!'
[Commentary] The media of our expression seems to have decreasing longevity. Of course, newer media have not been around as long as the older ones so their longevity has not been demonstrated but I think it is arguable that the more recent media do not have the resilience of stone or baked clay. Modern photographs may not last more than 150–200 years before they fade or disintegrate. Modern books, unless archival paper is used, may not last more than 100 years. I have written more than once in this column about my concerns for the longevity of digital media and our ability to correctly interpret digital content, absent the software that produced it. The centuries well before ours will be better known than ours will be unless we are persistent about preserving digital content. The earlier media seem to have a kind of timeless longevity while modern media from the 1800s forward seem to have shrinking lifetimes. Just as the monks and Muslims of the Middle Ages preserved content by copying into new media, won't we need to do the same for our modern content? Unless we face this challenge in a direct way, the truly impressive knowledge we have collectively produced in the past 100 years or so may simply evaporate with time.
[Cerf is vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google]