Hi Suzy,
There's been some great information about how floppies get used and
whether or not they are archival, I just wanted to add a brief comment
to this thread. Not only is the archival quality of the floppy itself
an issue, but also the technology and software used to access that
data. Think about how many computers are made these days without a
floppy drive, yes you can still get them as add-ons, but technology has
started to move away from that storage media. I would be surprised if
10-20 years down the line you didn't have a hard time scaring up a
floppy drive that is compatible with your computer or operating system.
As an example, we have about 15 floppies that store data using a now
obsolete, linguistic word processing program for old Apple Macintoshes.
I've been able to find software to copy the files from the floppies to a
hard drive/CD but I have no way of opening/reading those files as the
software they were created on no longer exists, let alone functions on a
PC. Additionally, I was not able to migrate information from all the
disks, whether they had been re-formatted or simply degraded beyond use,
I'm not sure.
I might also add that its not a bad idea to have some sort if data index
or dictionary so that people unfamiliar with the contents of a disk or
the file extensions (.txt, .mdb, .trf, etc.) of those files can at least
get some idea of what kinds of information might be contained on each
disk.
Let me know if you need more specifics and I'll try to clarify.
Chad
Suzy Adra Mazloum wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I was wondering if anyone can provide information concerning 3.25" floppies
> from an archival point of view. Has anyone had to migrate data from them to
> another format? what kind of experience did you have? Please share your
> experiences. I am currently writing a paper for an archives class and would
> like others inputs and views.
>
>
> Thank you very much for any information,
>
> Suzy Adra Mazloum
> Curator of Collections
> Arab American National Museum
>
> www.arabamericanmuseum.org
>
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--
Chad W Landsman
Laboratory and Collections Manager, Anthropology
Luther College
700 College Drive
Decorah, IA 52101
(563) 387-2156
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