It’s hardly the most exciting subject, but long term retention is one of those topics that seem to lurk in the background whenever the subject of electronic records comes up. With several centuries experience behind us, we’ve learned quite a bit about preserving paper records; Leonardo Da Vinci wrote his notes over 500 years ago, and we can still read them, but ask someone whether it will be possible to read our electronic laboratory records in 500 years time, and the answers can get a bit evasive. Since laboratories started the digital journey, we’ve probably all got some sad and sorry tales of data loss. Proprietary data formats, redundant applications, new forms of digital media, not to mention the failure to recover from hardware problems because you just didn’t get round to doing the backups have all conspired to create gaps in our record systems. In fact there is a fear that the early years of the ‘information age’ may come to be looked upon as a ‘digital dark age’, as our enthusiasm to embrace new technologies has raced ahead of our diligence in ensuring the preservation of their output.
One of the more significant stories has been the problems with the NASA records from the early space program. I came across this article The lost NASA tapes: Restoring lunar images after 40 years in the vault which describes some of the superhuman effort involved in reclaiming important data that may otherwise be lost forever. The data may probably be a bit more significant than some of the stuff we have in our labs, but who knows? But this is exactly the scenario that a good records management process and a good records’ manager has to save us from. If Records Managers become the heroes of the 21st century, so be it!
The NASA story makes interesting reading and raises the question ‘it couldn’t happen to us, could it?’ An earlier item from Charlie Sodano Getting Started with Records Management, was posted to draw attention to the problems and how to make a start on solving it. And the big question is, how ready are we now? It’s not unusual to come across surveys quoting the number of companies who feel they have a robust records management strategy in place being frighteningly low. Unfortunately, investing in records management doesn’t show a plus on the bottom line…..but if disaster strikes, then it can prevent a very big minus. Just like buying an insurance policy, really.
