Preservationists fretting over history vs. hi-tech

Fred Brooks of the Saugus Historical Society is concerned that history is being thrown away.With the onslaught of digital photographs and archives and ever-changing technology, Brooks said it worries him that images are not only being lost now, but that others may not survive into the future.”Historical Societies are really worried about this because at some point we won’t have any (photographic) history,” he said.Brooks said photography is now largely based around digital images but it’s unknown how long those images will last. Or worse, he said, the images might become trapped inside obsolete technology.”All I know is this piece of paper, if preserved, will last 300 years,” Brooks said while flipping the pages of a book. “That has been proven.”Likewise, conventional photographs have staying power as well. An old photo pulled from a trunk or the back of a drawer is generally still recognizable. But who knows how a digital picture will hold up.Sid Berger, the Ann C. Pingree director of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum, doesn’t disagree. He said Brooks is right to be concerned – anyone in the preservation field should be.When it comes right down to it, Berger said he believes archivists should go with the only proven method for preservation thus far – paper.”I believe in paper,” he said.Preserving photographs has always been a problem, Berger noted, but said digital photos bring two problems both linked to technology.At the Phillips Library, Berger said everything he has thus far is on paper or glass slide, but new images and documents are mainly digitally based.He said he knows of libraries short on space that are beginning to digitize books while tossing out the original copies.He said the idea makes him cringe because so little is known on how digital images will stand up. In fact, digital photos and copies must be checked regularly to ensure they are holding up.”No one knows if it’s deteriorating if you don’t check on it,” Berger said. “It’s cheaper to get a book into stable condition and put it on a shelf for another 200 years than to digitize it and have to recheck it constantly.”Because technology will no doubt continue to change, Berger said the theory is that digital images will be transferred to new platforms as needed. However, Berger said every time an image is moved to a new platform, it loses a little something.Michael Mitchell, general manager of Hunt’s Photo and Video in Melrose, said that is not necessarily true.”It would be true if you converted the file structure,” he said. “But if you simply save from one format to another you won’t lose anything.”Brook’s secondary concern is that with digital photography much of it is simply being deleted. While photographers used to file negatives that included secondary photographs that might not seem important at the moment, that is not as likely to happen with digital when images can be deleted on the spot.There is no fix for that unless intrepid photographers keep and catalogue all their images, but Mitchell said digital photography is not inherently anti-historical.”The stuff printed out from digital cameras for the most part is just as reliable as the chemically treated photos,” he said.He did admit that black and white photos did fall into a gray area, “no pun intended,” but color digital photos are fairly steadfast.He said photo printers have also come a long way in producing excellent results for average as well as professional photographers.Compared to film cameras, however, digital photography is still in its infancy and, despite reassurances, it still leaves those in the historical field wary.