Re: The BIGGER Ramifications to History
| October 11, 2006 05:49PM |
Ah, a topic other than railroads that's close to my heart - digital preservation. As for my credentials, I'm the author of zilch and the guy behind a bunch of bad photos littering up the internet. That said, I'm also a guy with a fair background in computers who has a significant interest in history - particularly railroad history - and has laid awake at night pondering many of these problems. As a warning, this got quite a bit longer than I'd originally anticipated.
*** Sorting out the Who/What/Where/When (but still lacking Why)
Digital media actually helps solve some of the problems you bring up. As images come, straight out of my camera, they're already tagged with when they were taken and my name. It's called EXIF metadata - it's data describing the image (including exposure, white balance, camera orientation, etc.) As long as the EXIF block is intact (and many lesser editing programs unfortunately like to strip it out), you at least have a baseline on when that image was most likely taken. Yes, it can be modified or faked, but faking metadata isn't a popular hobby yet.
Some manufacturers have made an optional GPS module for their cameras, so that any image is tagged with the coordinates at which it was taken, providing the camera can get a GPS lock (usually not a problem for railfans, since we prefer clear days under the open sky). Canon, to my dismay, has not yet pursued this, so I've investigated third-party products that will, based on time stamp, go back and fill in this data later. I have a feeling this will be the start of an invaluable aide to future researchers, at least in getting started.
On one hand, it'll be harder to validate an image is unmodified. Having a RAW file or some such will go a long way (providing any software can still read an old proprietary format), since they're not easily modified and re-saved. Also, because photography is now incredibly cheap and there are a lot of fans out there, future researchers may have a plethora of source material that they can use to correlate and corroborate an individual image or fact. I say "may" because of the reliable storage problem, read on...
As nice as Google and digitized information might be, there's no substitute for getting as close to the original source material as possible. I almost always start with Google, but that often leads me down to old books, magazines, newspapers and such, which I then need to track down. Now if they'd just digitize all those papers from all those years, it would be *so* much faster.
*** The "Fakes" Question
As for modified images, it's a tough call. On one hand, I really enjoyed the one the other day. It made it seem more real than Otto's original B&W, as if I was really there. On the other hand, there's a photo postcard that was manufactured of my hometown, showing an electric railway car running through it. I guarantee there was never a trolley line downtown Walcott, IA. It was a marketing ploy and a faked photo from the 1920s, I think. It's a really good fake, though, and I've had several people ask me when the trolleys stopped running.
" /> It's not a new problem, it's just one that's going to become a bigger issue.
I'm also an insulator collector, as well, and there's a rule in that hobby that any reproductions should be discreetly marked as such. Such a voluntary system does not obviate the need for researchers to validate photos (or insulators, for that matter - several people have violated this policy for greedy reasons), but it does help throw out a few as fakes. Maybe something similar convention should be encouraged by the railfan populus...
For that matter, I'm guilty of not following my own advice. Back in 2001, I believe, I posted a UP SD70M in "Heritage" D&RGW paint on my website as an April Fools joke. Now here we are 5 years later, and the thing really exists (though it looks nothing like mine - still, I guess the joke's on me now). While I've marked the text as "April Fools", I never went back and marked the image.
*** The Reliable Storage Problem - aka, "Will Any of Today's Images Survive?"
My own opinion is that the greater problem will be the lack of permanence in the current digital age. I put a lot of time and money into maintaining my own archive of digital images - redundant disk arrays, nightly backups, nightly checksum validation to catch corruption, weekly offsite backups, biannual full DVD-R backups, etc. My dad only has a single disk, but makes a DVD of any of his new images once a month or so and stores it in his safe deposit box. My uncle doesn't do squat for all of his photos of family reunions, his kids graduating, getting married, etc. I'm betting the average person is most like my uncle. Once the inevitable disk crash or data corruption comes, those photos will be lost forever. While the same could be argued about flood or fire with conventional images, those are much less common than the demons that plague digital storage. Playing digital archivist, even with a relatively modest set of data (a couple hundred gig) quickly becomes a very hard and expensive nut to crack. The only thing that's certain is that no physical media today will be good over the long term. They'll either fail or become obsolete.
That leads squarely into my next thought, which speaks to your discussion of the cost of obtaining images and how everyone expects them to be free. As for me, I've always had a publicly stated policy that anyone can download my images and use them for any *non-commercial* effort without asking, as long as I'm credited. I even make the full-resolution originals available online. The reason I do this is two-fold: The first is because I figure the most value many of these photos have is in the enjoyment others have in seeing them. Second is because I figure it's one of the best ways to assure the best stuff gets preserved - others will take, keep, and use the best parts of it. While it might not be together as a complete collection, sheer numbers dictate that some of it will likely survive the ravages of time until such point that it's historically interesting. I certainly respect those who wish to closely guard their copyright, but it's just not my style. Call me a rebel. (For commercial use, I usually still negotiate payment, but I typically donate any proceeds to charity. I've never made a dime being a railfan, nor do I intend to do so.)
*** Finally, the Internet and Fact
I would also argue that the internet only shifts qualifications from a pedigree-driven model to peer review-driven one, not that makes everyone's view equally valid or eliminates absolute "fact". Sure, it gives everyone a voice, but the very collective nature of much of it is a form of peer review. Boards like this run any stated assertion through a BS filter - one composed of hundreds of minds, all looking at a statement and contemplating it against their own experiences. We learn to trust based on past results, massive peer review, or evidence, not necessarily on the writer's resume or titles.
As an example of that last assertion, you'll all thinking I'm a total crackpot by now. Many will probably review my post and publicly state I'm two fries short of a happy meal. Thus, then most will likely never read another post I make unless you're looking to cure insomnia." />
*** Sorting out the Who/What/Where/When (but still lacking Why)
Digital media actually helps solve some of the problems you bring up. As images come, straight out of my camera, they're already tagged with when they were taken and my name. It's called EXIF metadata - it's data describing the image (including exposure, white balance, camera orientation, etc.) As long as the EXIF block is intact (and many lesser editing programs unfortunately like to strip it out), you at least have a baseline on when that image was most likely taken. Yes, it can be modified or faked, but faking metadata isn't a popular hobby yet.
Some manufacturers have made an optional GPS module for their cameras, so that any image is tagged with the coordinates at which it was taken, providing the camera can get a GPS lock (usually not a problem for railfans, since we prefer clear days under the open sky). Canon, to my dismay, has not yet pursued this, so I've investigated third-party products that will, based on time stamp, go back and fill in this data later. I have a feeling this will be the start of an invaluable aide to future researchers, at least in getting started.
On one hand, it'll be harder to validate an image is unmodified. Having a RAW file or some such will go a long way (providing any software can still read an old proprietary format), since they're not easily modified and re-saved. Also, because photography is now incredibly cheap and there are a lot of fans out there, future researchers may have a plethora of source material that they can use to correlate and corroborate an individual image or fact. I say "may" because of the reliable storage problem, read on...
As nice as Google and digitized information might be, there's no substitute for getting as close to the original source material as possible. I almost always start with Google, but that often leads me down to old books, magazines, newspapers and such, which I then need to track down. Now if they'd just digitize all those papers from all those years, it would be *so* much faster.
*** The "Fakes" Question
As for modified images, it's a tough call. On one hand, I really enjoyed the one the other day. It made it seem more real than Otto's original B&W, as if I was really there. On the other hand, there's a photo postcard that was manufactured of my hometown, showing an electric railway car running through it. I guarantee there was never a trolley line downtown Walcott, IA. It was a marketing ploy and a faked photo from the 1920s, I think. It's a really good fake, though, and I've had several people ask me when the trolleys stopped running.
" /> It's not a new problem, it's just one that's going to become a bigger issue.I'm also an insulator collector, as well, and there's a rule in that hobby that any reproductions should be discreetly marked as such. Such a voluntary system does not obviate the need for researchers to validate photos (or insulators, for that matter - several people have violated this policy for greedy reasons), but it does help throw out a few as fakes. Maybe something similar convention should be encouraged by the railfan populus...
For that matter, I'm guilty of not following my own advice. Back in 2001, I believe, I posted a UP SD70M in "Heritage" D&RGW paint on my website as an April Fools joke. Now here we are 5 years later, and the thing really exists (though it looks nothing like mine - still, I guess the joke's on me now). While I've marked the text as "April Fools", I never went back and marked the image.
*** The Reliable Storage Problem - aka, "Will Any of Today's Images Survive?"
My own opinion is that the greater problem will be the lack of permanence in the current digital age. I put a lot of time and money into maintaining my own archive of digital images - redundant disk arrays, nightly backups, nightly checksum validation to catch corruption, weekly offsite backups, biannual full DVD-R backups, etc. My dad only has a single disk, but makes a DVD of any of his new images once a month or so and stores it in his safe deposit box. My uncle doesn't do squat for all of his photos of family reunions, his kids graduating, getting married, etc. I'm betting the average person is most like my uncle. Once the inevitable disk crash or data corruption comes, those photos will be lost forever. While the same could be argued about flood or fire with conventional images, those are much less common than the demons that plague digital storage. Playing digital archivist, even with a relatively modest set of data (a couple hundred gig) quickly becomes a very hard and expensive nut to crack. The only thing that's certain is that no physical media today will be good over the long term. They'll either fail or become obsolete.
That leads squarely into my next thought, which speaks to your discussion of the cost of obtaining images and how everyone expects them to be free. As for me, I've always had a publicly stated policy that anyone can download my images and use them for any *non-commercial* effort without asking, as long as I'm credited. I even make the full-resolution originals available online. The reason I do this is two-fold: The first is because I figure the most value many of these photos have is in the enjoyment others have in seeing them. Second is because I figure it's one of the best ways to assure the best stuff gets preserved - others will take, keep, and use the best parts of it. While it might not be together as a complete collection, sheer numbers dictate that some of it will likely survive the ravages of time until such point that it's historically interesting. I certainly respect those who wish to closely guard their copyright, but it's just not my style. Call me a rebel. (For commercial use, I usually still negotiate payment, but I typically donate any proceeds to charity. I've never made a dime being a railfan, nor do I intend to do so.)
*** Finally, the Internet and Fact
I would also argue that the internet only shifts qualifications from a pedigree-driven model to peer review-driven one, not that makes everyone's view equally valid or eliminates absolute "fact". Sure, it gives everyone a voice, but the very collective nature of much of it is a form of peer review. Boards like this run any stated assertion through a BS filter - one composed of hundreds of minds, all looking at a statement and contemplating it against their own experiences. We learn to trust based on past results, massive peer review, or evidence, not necessarily on the writer's resume or titles.
As an example of that last assertion, you'll all thinking I'm a total crackpot by now. Many will probably review my post and publicly state I'm two fries short of a happy meal. Thus, then most will likely never read another post I make unless you're looking to cure insomnia.
" />
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488 stops for water at Los Pinos tank on closing day Oct. 1979. Photo courtesy Don Richter
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