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Personal Records
12:40 pm
Tue January 29, 2013

Preserving Personal Information

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Credit KUOW Photo/Amber Cortes
Wire recording, Gould Family, approximately late 1950s, from the collection of Seattle architect Carl Gould (who designed Suzzallo Library and many of the buildings on campus). From the Special Collections Archive, Allen Library, UW.
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Credit KUOW Photo/Amber Cortes
Wax cylinder recording (1929) from the papers of Melville Jacobs, an anthropologist at UW. The recordings are from various Pacific Northwest indigenous tribes. From the Special Collections Archive, Allen Library, UW.
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Credit KUOW Photo/Amber Cortes
Information storage gets smaller: Bound book verses Zip drive. From the Special Collections Archive, Allen Library, UW.
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Credit KUOW Photo/Amber Cortes
A vinyl recording from the collection of poet Theodore Roethke, 1950. From the Special Collections Archive, Allen Library, UW.
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Credit KUOW Photo/Amber Cortes
Recording of poem “I Think of a Flower” by Laurence Binyon. From the collection of poet Theodore Roethke (1950). From the Special Collections Archive, Allen Library, UW.
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Credit KUOW Photo/Amber Cortes
The same recording migrated to reel-to-reel tape in the 1970s. From the Special Collections Archive, Allen Library, UW.
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Credit KUOW Photo/Amber Cortes
Storage further migrated again to cassette tape. From the Special Collections Archive, Allen Library, UW.
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Credit KUOW Photo/Amber Cortes
The Special Collections Archive in the basement of Allen Library. From the Special Collections Archive, Allen Library, UW.

What kind of record are we leaving behind for the next generation? Physical objects get damaged in floods and fires, or simply get moldy in the basement. Think you're better off going digital? Think again. Hard drives crash. Compact discs deteriorate. And cloud-based computing companies get shuttered or go out of business.

Our personal records seem so vulnerable. It leaves one wondering: Are we leaving any kind of a lasting record? Ross talks with archivist John Bolcer and a digital media expert Cathy Marshall. Do you want to protect something of yours for the future? Today's guests will tell you how.

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