[Web4lib] Next new thing?

[Karen Coyle]

Mark Bardsley wrote:

>3) There is an acronym but I can't remember it (then what is it good for?)
>that implies that many copies keep things safe. The digital age is allowing
>us to keep many copies of things. These copies are going to move from
>storage media to storage media. In other words, things that are now on hard
>drives, DVDs, etc, will move to holographic or DNA based systems (or
>nanotech) -for example.
>  
>
Yes, and the big question is: how will we know which of them are 
equivalent copies of something else? In other words, if you're looking 
for the PDF in a particular place and don't find it, but you find a 
"similar" PDF elsewhere (or an XML version), what's to tell you that you 
have the same thing? In an overall cultural sense, the "lots of copies" 
is a great idea. But if you wish to do what libraries do, which is to 
identify and inventory the cultural artifact, LOCKSS is a nightmare. The 
obvious solution is "work identifier" but as we've seen, that's easier 
said than done.

kc

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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
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