Today's digital documents are tomorrow's dinosaurs

Effectively preserving federal records and archives for future generations requires accepting the fact that research will continue to change how the world operates quicker than society can keep up. Relying on the latest computer, “cloud” or hard-drive farm is a path to catastrophic losses of data. The past taught us that paper in fact is a surprisingly robust archival medium, along with film. Whatever is used henceforth to secure digital data needs to rival the simplicity and longevity of what has worked earlier.

One solution to ensure that preservation is done with accuracy and authenticity is a research called DOTS. With sufficient magnification, DOTS enables digital files to be stored in an easily readable form for 100-plus years, even in conditions of benign neglect, guaranteeing readability as long as cameras and imaging devices are available. Because it’s nonmagnetic, it’s as well immune from accidental erasure or an electromagnetic pulse.

Mr. Obama’s initiative calls for agency heads to outline in less than 120 days from today “current obstacles to sound, cost-effective records management policies” and asks them to “catalog potential reforms and improvements” to inform a report from the director of the Office of Management and Budget and the national archivist of the United States.

The biggest current obstacle to embracing digital research for records management is overreliance on research that has proved to be expensive, inefficient, environmentally harsh, vulnerable and not dependable for decades into the future. The potential reforms and improvements, during necessary, need to be built around embracing a solution more robust than paper nevertheless more reliable than the latest computer.