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Re: Digital Nomenclature



Jennifer Gunter wrote:
> I was informed today that in the technological arena, the
term ARCHIVE refers to storage.

You may want to look at some of the IT dictionaries listed at
http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~calz/ermlinks/term_it.htm
and look for the word "archive" under some of them

One source with three illustrative examples is:
http://webopedia.internet.com/TERM/a/archive.html

You will rarely see the use of the term by IT professionals in any way that resembles how we, as
archivists, would traditionally use the term.  They often mean something like near-line or off-line
storage, or compression for saving storage space.  It's also worth noting that the system for
accessing through your web browser old email messages posted to this is also referred to as an
archive.
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

I'm sure opinions vary widely on this issue, but I think in many cases it's more important for us to
convey to IT people what we think needs to be done (authenticity, metadata, physical refreshing, etc.)
than to enter an endless semantic battle with them.

=========================================================
 Cal Lee
 University of Michigan
 School of Information
 Phone: 734-647-0505
 http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~calz/
 "How can I know what I think because I forgot what I said?"
                                         - Karl Weick, 1979

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