[game_preservation] Physical Archives collapsing (Example in Cologne)

[Andreas Lange]

Dear Andrew,
indeed this cologne desaster caused some people to promote digital 
preservation. An other recent example is a fire in one of the most 
important libraries in germany 
(http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2831391,00.html) in 2004.
Andreas


Andrew Armstrong schrieb:

> A sad example (one I missed from early March - I don't check out too 

> much "archive" news in my RSS feeds) from Cologne, where their 

> Historical Archive of Cologne collapsed!

> 

> http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,611311,00.html

> 

> I guess relevant to us is the fact any fire, earthquake, collapse or 

> other disaster could spell doom for a physical collection of artefacts, 

> games and so forth. Makes it important to get an off site digital copy 

> or scan if possible! Shame it just takes so much work (time + money) to 

> do scans, and DRM (and maybe to a lesser extent, copyright laws) 

> sometimes prevent digital copies of digital media.

> 

> Perhaps identifying this as one area for best practices or some form of 

> archival standards is a good idea :) (Digital copies off site is another 

> important one of course). Has anyone got any other examples except for 

> classic ones (the Great Library of Alexandria for one) of archives or 

> libraries having disasters and massive losses? I can't remember any off 

> the top of my head, but for research into this area it'd be good to know 

> some.

> 

> Andrew

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