Certain periods in human history are known by specific names; one such period is called the Dark Ages—referring not to a lack of sunlight, but rather to a paucity of knowledge and significant intellectual discourse. In his book, Digital Dark Ages II: When the Digital Data Die, Bryan Bergeron made a compelling case for the possibility that “[t]he United States, one of the most technically advanced nations on the planet, is poised to enter a second Dark Ages—a time when what we leave behind will be viewed as negligible compared to the previous centuries” and that furthermore, this second Dark Ages is not predicated on a catastrophic natural event such as dramatic climate changes or on a nuclear Armageddon, but that it can stem from “the natural progression of systems and processes already in place” (2002, p. xxvi). However, the United States is not the only nation that could potentially suffer such a setback. As we embrace the conveniences, richness, versatility, and flexibility that come with life in a digital world, we are moving further away from the traditional and time tested means of recording the fruits of human endeavors for posterity. This is partly due to the newer is better syndrome, but the reality is that space restrictions make keeping hard copy records less and less practical.
There are many ways to preserve something. The choice comes down to the nature of the item being preserved, how the preserved item will be accessed, and how long one foresees the item will continue to be of use. Preservation in general is a very complicated proposition when you really consider all that is involved not only in infrastructure costs, in human labor and intellectual costs, but also in choosing what to preserve. It can really all a big coin toss, especially when it comes to the more esoteric or less practical (I'm not sure if I am really conveying what I mean with that term). I think one can make a clear case for preserving practical knowledge that are essential to the survival of humanity and that bring us our human comforts, but then again our ancestors did ok without, so who's to say that our descendants couldn't find their way back to it again if it came down to it. I strongly believe in the resilience of humanity and its ability to bounce back from the disaster. The preservation of culture and heritage is a much harder sell I think. Culture and heritage can play as important a role as the practicalities of physics, chemistry, medicine, engineering in humanity's ability to recover from catastrophe, so it is difficult to see which should be the greater focus of preservation efforts. When the chips are down one never knows what bit of knowledge, arcane and irrelevant as it may seem now, may be the thing that takes us around the bend.
In a perfect world we would be able to preserve everything, but physical space is limited, resources are limited, and storage costs--perhaps not as much as 10 or even 10 years ago, but it still costs. So given those constraints, choices must be made, priorities must be set for what gets preserved and what does not. However distasteful it may seem, someone has to make that call. There will always be some bias introduced in the process and there will be agendas and attempts to manipulate the process to specific ends, but that is not anything we should be surprised about. The best that we can hope for is that the decison-makers make more great and valid choices than bad ones. Only our descendants will be able to say how well, or not, we did in making those tough calls.
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