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Re: hard disks - short



Allow me, in turn, to respond to the various responses.  As Dennis noted, we're moving inexorably to the point where all of us will be required to master at least a certain amount of technology, those of us at least who haven't already. 
 
The truth is for most of us, the materials ON the hard drive are of interest rather than the drives themselves.  Assuming author John Smith gives his hard drives to the Smithtown Archives, users will want to read Smith's writings, and don't much care how they got there. However...
 
Assuming one was the archivist at the Smithtown Computer Center, you'd be interested in the drive itself, I imagine.  Like Sharon suggested, documents can be Lean Cuisine packages (no pork for me, please), but I presume they hold no historical value unless one is archiving advertising or packaging history.  Likwise the hard drive itself only holds value if you are documenting the history of computer equipment.
 
Mind you, as we've talked about, there are occasions when the outside is important, i.e. bindings & clasps on medieval books, but I think given the nature of hard drives, in most cases I'd see little value for the average archives.
 
DS

______________________________________
Daniel Sokolow, Archives Coordinator
David Taylor Archives
North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System
155 Community Drive
Great Neck, NY 11021
mailto:dsokolow@nshs.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: Bogdan-Florin POPOVICI [mailto:bogdanpopovici@ROL.RO]
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2002 1:53 PM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: hard disks - short
Importance: High

Allow me a stupid question, probably:

 

Can the computer hard disks be considered "documents", from archival point of view?
 
Thanks,
Bogdan-Florin POPOVICI
archivist
Brasov County Division of National Archives
ROMANIA