Technology - Reuters Internet Report
Keep Printouts of E-Mails or Risk Losing Them
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LONDON (Reuters) - Electronic communication is here to stay and will become more popular than ever but scientists warned Wednesday that records of immense historical value could be lost if printouts are not made.
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Changes in formats, servers and institutional policies and problems with memory space mean valuable information could simply disappear.
"Most serious is the potential loss of records that have immense historical value," said Errol Friedberg of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.
Unlike earlier historical documents that were carved in stone, written on parchment or printed on paper and kept in a safe place, preserving electronic communication poses problems.
"It is nothing short of terrifying to contemplate the probable magnitude of lost records as yesterday's electronic storage devices become incompatible with today's software applications," Friedberg and his colleagues said in a letter published in the science journal Nature.
With daily e-mail traffic expected to grow from 9.7 billion pieces in 2000 to more than 35 billion in 2005, the scientists fear problems will increase. Few emails are translated into hard copy.
"The pen may be mightier than the sword, but a single mouse-click can destroy products of inestimable value," Friedberg warned.
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