Ministry of Justice plan to destroy historical wills is ‘insane’, say experts
www.theguardian.com
Department hopes to save £4.5m a year by digitising – then binning – about 100m wills that date back 150 years

UK plan to digitise wills and destroy paper originals “insane” say experts::Department hopes to save £4.5m a year by digitising – then binning – about 100m wills that date back 150 years

  • takeda@lemmy.worldEnglish
    732·
    9 months ago

    I understand why it is not a good idea to digitize, as tampering might be easier to do without any traces, but why do they store wills for 150 years? One would think that by then they are outdated and no longer needed.

    Edit: looks like the concern is about historical artifacts. Feels even more ridiculous than I thought. What’s next, taking pictures of historical paintings and destroying originals? Why not digitize and still keep the originals?

    • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
      441·
      9 months ago

      Why not digitize and still keep the originals?

      That’s where I’m at. Why not both? Redundancy is good,

      Paper copies are good to have till they’re no longer necessary (edit: and apparently these aren’t necessary anymore)

      Digital copies are also useful for obvious reasons

      • Lmaydev@programming.devEnglish
        221·
        9 months ago

        They aren’t necessary, that’s the point.

        They want to preserve them as historical documents and the government is trying to cut storage costs.

        • RainfallSonata@lemmy.worldEnglish
          115·
          9 months ago

          Much less expensive than maintaining the digital format they’re scanned into over hundreds of years, or upgrading the format each time the technology evolves. Eventually you reach a point where it’s better to re-scan into the new format rather try to upgrade for the 50th time. But then you haven’t maintained the originals. Under the right conditions, paper can last thousands of years.

          • testfactor@lemmy.worldEnglish
            7·
            9 months ago

            Wait, hold on. Are you arguing that, in the long run, it’s cheaper to pay rent and maintenance on facilities and personnel to caretake reams of paper than to have a bunch of PDFs on Google Drive?

            Paper isn’t some magical substance that doesn’t need any maintenance ever. Silverfish, fire, water, and a million other things need to be actively guarded against to keep these records usable.

            On the other hand, PDF has been around since 1992, and it hardly seems to be going anywhere. And even if it does, running a “PDF to NewStandard” converter on the files every 30 years or so seems unlikely to cost as much as 30yrs of rent on a physical building. And that holds true even over the course of 1000yrs. Rent’s not cheap, and neither are people who maintain physical records.

            Like, I’m not advocating for destroying the physical documents, but the idea that it’s even remotely close to being cheaper to keep them as paper vs digitizing is an absolute fantasy.

              • testfactor@lemmy.worldEnglish
                3·
                9 months ago

                Ah, yes, flash. A program that only lasted 15 years and was a platform that could execute arbitrary applications, most of which were silly video games.

                A total apples to apples comparison with an open standard format for rendering static documents with hundreds of different reader implementations that’s been around for a third of a century and is used by every major world government as the core standard for electronic documents. :P

    • ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      222·
      9 months ago

      This is an idea straight out of science fiction that was meant to be a warning, not a guide. From “Rainbow’s End” by Vernor Vinge.

      Tiny flecks of white floated and swirled in the column of light. Snowflakes? But one landed on his hand: a fleck of paper. And now the ripping buzz of the saw was still louder, and there was also the sound of a giant vacuum cleaner…

      Brrrap! A tree shredder!

      Ahead of him, everything was empty bookcases, skeletons. Robert went to the end of the aisle and walked toward the noise. The air was a fog of floating paper dust. In the fourth aisle, the space between the bookcases was filled with a pulsing fabric tube. The monster worm was brightly lit from within. At the other end, almost twenty feet away, was the worm’s maw - the source of the noise… The raging maw was a “Navicloud custom debinder.” The fabric tunnel that stretched out behind it was a “camera tunnel…” The shredded fragments of books and magazines flew down the tunnel like leaves in a tornado, twisting and tumbling. The inside of the fabric was stiched with thousands of tiny cameras. The shreds were being photographed again and again, from every angle and orientation, till finally the torn leaves dropped into a bin just in front of Robert.