[fitsbits] Preservation of digital data guaranteed to last at least 500 years

[William Pence]

There is an interesting article in the recent "Biblioteca Apostolica 
Vaticana" from the Vatican Library entitled "Preservation of Digitized 
manuscripts on tape" that describes a new digital tape technology that 
they have begun to use. See
https://www.vaticanlibrary.va/newletter/201803EN.pdf

  "This technique involves preserving any type of digital data in a 
simple binary form within a special film. The film is guaranteed to last 
for at least 500 years, in an open source mode, which remains 
unalterable and at the same time may be retrieved in the future in an 
easy and fast way."

They are using this archive film format for some especially valuable 
documents, in addition to storing all their scanned manuscripts in FITS 
format. As an added layer of security, they are storing a copy of the 
digital tapes in the Arctic World Archive, in the Svalbard Islands, in 
Norway.  These islands are a protected demilitarized territory and the 
archive is located within a mountain that has been proven to resist 
nuclear disaster.  Moreover, thanks to the severely cold temperatures 
there, in this case, the tape is guaranteed to last for 1000 years.

Can any astronomical observatory claim to have anything close to this 
level of data preservation security??

-Bill

-- 
____________________________________________________________________
Dr. William Pence    Astrophysicist     William.Pence at nasa.gov
NASA/GSFC Code 662     [Emeritus]       +1-301-286-4599 (voice)
Greenbelt MD 20771                      +1-301-286-1684 (fax)