Over a decade ago, I was struck by a scary exhibit during a visit to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. The exhibit is about the “Digital Dark Age”: the problem that arises as technology moves on too quickly, and people do not convert their data from obsolete formats (floppy disks, CDs, even older digital file encodings) into something that they can still access and read.
In the Hyperlinked Library, we’ve been learning all about how libraries need to change and evolve; at the same time, we have to meet our patrons where they are, and that might involve a pile of old home movies on VHS. To that end, and inspired by my own local library’s historical archives, I propose a Digital Memory Lab as a worthy use of our imaginary ideal funding and space.