I thought of you recently, Roland, when I was in my local WHSmith — and I looked at the fountain pens! (Well, it's a start!) All the memories of using them at school came flooding back.
In the late '80s, when I got my Amiga 500, I started making notes and saving them on floppy disks. I browsed through them recently. Some were journal-style entries about my dad's last few years, so it was heavy going.
I've used paper a lot for notes and journals, but a few years ago, I scanned several of my old diaries and shredded the originals.
I'm often torn between the two formats. Digitising everything feels like a way to preserve it and for both my sons to have a copy one day. (Deep down, I know they're unlikely to be interested or have the time.) Of course, file formats become obsolete, so paper might be safer. Except for the risk of flood, fire, theft, etc.
Today, I get carried away worrying about the need to preserve things in digital form, no matter how they were created. I wish I could go back to a simpler life and not care so much if things get lost over the years.
Although digital sounds great for posterity, descendants are unlikely to access files, even if it's possible by then. A book can be found on a shelf without electronic access passwords or loss due to the platform where it was stored coming to an end. Files could be saved on SD cards etc. but again they might become redundant.
I think electronic backup is a good thing, but to keep the books as well is for me vital.
That makes a lot of sense to me, Roland. When I think about how much easier it was for my late parents, with just a few diaries and traditional photo albums. They had nothing to back up. (Well, until I decided to scan their photos… 😂)
Maybe sometimes the inaccessible nature of digital can be an advantage, if there are things you’d rather someone could not read by picking up a book.
I thought of you recently, Roland, when I was in my local WHSmith — and I looked at the fountain pens! (Well, it's a start!) All the memories of using them at school came flooding back.
In the late '80s, when I got my Amiga 500, I started making notes and saving them on floppy disks. I browsed through them recently. Some were journal-style entries about my dad's last few years, so it was heavy going.
I've used paper a lot for notes and journals, but a few years ago, I scanned several of my old diaries and shredded the originals.
I'm often torn between the two formats. Digitising everything feels like a way to preserve it and for both my sons to have a copy one day. (Deep down, I know they're unlikely to be interested or have the time.) Of course, file formats become obsolete, so paper might be safer. Except for the risk of flood, fire, theft, etc.
Today, I get carried away worrying about the need to preserve things in digital form, no matter how they were created. I wish I could go back to a simpler life and not care so much if things get lost over the years.
Although digital sounds great for posterity, descendants are unlikely to access files, even if it's possible by then. A book can be found on a shelf without electronic access passwords or loss due to the platform where it was stored coming to an end. Files could be saved on SD cards etc. but again they might become redundant.
I think electronic backup is a good thing, but to keep the books as well is for me vital.
That makes a lot of sense to me, Roland. When I think about how much easier it was for my late parents, with just a few diaries and traditional photo albums. They had nothing to back up. (Well, until I decided to scan their photos… 😂)
Maybe sometimes the inaccessible nature of digital can be an advantage, if there are things you’d rather someone could not read by picking up a book.