There are many good ideas, here. I agree that the effort to digitize is time well spent as there are a number of unforeseen events that may crop up and affect your research after you no longer have a watchful eye on the material. Case in point, my father’s entire published career in metallurgical methodology and committee work in ASTM saved and protected by him for nearly 70 years was shredded over the course of several weeks, in the cover of night, by my mentally diminished mother after his passing prompted by my own request to take stewardship of the records. On one hand, I lament the loss, on the other the PUBLISHED work has long been part and parcel to the methodology of modern metallurgy.
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I also think you can laminate those pages that are the most valuable for you, it’d bee too much materials for all of them, but it’s a nice way to preserve paper.
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Now I know why this librarian woke up with a nightmare - where are my bookshelves?? WHERE ARE MY BOOKS???
PS paper is also not eternal. Backtrack about half a century when I was preparing books to go to the binder for repairs. Back when UCT had a bookbinding department! Our bookbinder showed me, bend a corner of the page. If it breaks the paper has perished … and it is not worth rebinding … send for pulping. Sob.
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Hmm…. Well, do be watchful and careful. Keep an eye on email notices, which could have announcements about shuttering or migration plans buried at the end of the usual customer glad greetings and banter e.g.,
“THANK YOU for being our customer. Our illustrious history shows (blah, blah, blah). … We’ve accomplished (blah, blah blah). (Blah, blah, blah - you are getting sleepy). ….We are now SO excited to announce …. (Blah, blah, blah - go to sleep) … , our team will contact you soon to explain this WONDERFUL development - tiny reverence to massive future action you must take to keep your data)…
I had photos and collections uploaded to Apple’s .ME facility (their pre-iCloud storage and hosting solution). When Apple migrated to iCloud, 80% of the info was lost along with 100% of the organization. I had only a few random photos left, none of the text and none of the layout. In my foolish innocence and trust in the cloud hype, I had long deleted many of the photos stored locally to make room on those early, smaller capacity disks. Also, I lost a fair number of photos stored on Kodak Galery and some other defunct hosting platform. Then, one photo hosting service changed it’s policy to only 1000 pics stored without a paid subscription. I spent hours picking and choosing what to keep and what to let go. Not fun.
Now, I’m aware that some of these lost photos may be in hard copy stored in boxes or on those obsolete disk systems. These being stored in 2 towers of boxes in a hall closet (hangs head - not categorized).
Still, I’m a bit bitter that the hours I spent scanning stuff on slow old home systems just did not work out. I try to motivate myself to tackle those towers of old media, but not successful so far.
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Branching off of this, you can always make a site for free on websites like Wix. Where the site goes from there is something that I can’t say because it depends if it gets circulated, but at least that way it is all in a public space.
Or you can add it all to iNaturalist, like some others have said. Beyond just posting observations, there’s the journal section you can use.
A mix between the two could be making the site and then attaching that to your iNaturalist profile or including it in a journal entry or an observation in the notes section if the site’s contents has any relevance to the observation. Just some ideas though. There’s a lot of ways it can all shake out.
Those free sites have a strong risk of disappearing at some point. Remember GeoCities?
There were at least 38 million pages displayed by GeoCities before it was terminated, most user-written.
People had 6 months notice and much of it was archived, although perhaps not all. Many online providers of free hosting disappear with far less notice. Additionally the material is subject to vague and overreaching terms of service, the application of which is increasingly executed by AI systems and offer no recourse if the algorithm decides that your data needs to be deleted.
While much of that data was preserved by archivists, it is far better to directly place the materials in an archive than relying on a chance that someone will (1) foresee the demise of a particular website and (2) archive it (3) in a way that others will be able to continue access in the future. And even if something is archived, one will need to know how and where to find it.
Far better to hand a copy directly to a major, reputable public archive such as the Internet Archive, where meta information can be more effectively surface the data for others to find.
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I participate in exactly this kind of volunteer digitization on the Cit Sci platform Zooniverse. Simply typing out the handwritten labels on museum insect specimens. This task dissipates stress and makes me feel more contented.
So @jasonhernandez74 , I’m happy to help you type out your notebooks! Or if you want a proofreader…I’m quite good at that, with modest credentials.
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And @WeeCorbie - I worked at a bookstore for a year or two. I was appalled to learn that many remaindered paperbacks have the covers ripped off, and are then recycled. The first time I had to take a batch to the bin, I could hardly manage it. It, unfortunately, became routine. It still gives me pain, though!
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I understand the angst of our personal notebook contents disappearing when we die but ask yourself what was your purpose in making those notes in the first place. I will lay good money that for most people it was as a personal aide memoire more than anything else. In that respect it has value to you - and once you are gone, so what?
The other reason for keeping this data is as a part of the scientific record (eBird, iNat etc) and for that to be meaningful there really has to be some consistency in what is recorded so that the “database” can be properly examined and the information within it combined with other sources. As a biologist who uses both eBird and iNat, I value both but from a usable scientific standpoint I would argue that the rigid protocols of eBird are likely to be more useful to posterity in the long run … if only iNat would institute similar protocols.
Either way, if you are using notebooks, start today by standardizing your methods.
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There are handwritten documents from 100 years ago that are more accessible than digital records stored on 3-1/2 inch floppy disk, or websites archived in the 90s. I reject the advice that says digitizing them will make them more permanent; yet somehow I knew that’s the first place people would go with this.
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Yeah. I’m a bit skeptical about future accessibility of electronic records we’re creating today.
Maybe we should transcribe all our field journals onto clay tablets and archive them in a cave.
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Digitizing materials is good but, as said above, changing technology can make the material inaccessible. So can solar flares. So preserve the paper originals if possible. Historical societies, museums, documents departments of university libraries – there are many possible repositories for your work. Even if it just sits there for decades, someone may find it eventually.
Important point: Put in your will* where you want these things to go, but ALSO tell people around you. I know cases where records were lost as others had to take over the writer’s life due to health issues including dementia. By the time the will came up, the records were gone.
- You should all have wills (no matter how old you are), unless you absolutely don’t care what happens to your stuff and you don’t have children. A will makes sure that when you have other important things on your mind (like dying), you don’t have to fret about your stuff (or who will be your kids’ guardian). Revise the will when something big happens in your life or whenever you want. If your life is really simple, you can write your own will (but get it witnessed!). If what you want done with your stuff is even a little bit complicated or if you have children (or other dependents), get a lawyer involved.
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Yes, digitising records makes them easier to share and to interrogate, but not more permanent and probably less accurate. And when something wipes all the computer memories, I suspect it will be the medical records, government records, criminal records and bank records that will be most missed rather than beetle records, even by entomologists.
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I would also like to add, Powers of Attorney for health and finances are also important. As a psycho-geriatric and Intensive Care nurse, I saw far too many people with dementia or other conditions, who had no legal POA to make end of life decisions. I was Health POA for my mum and dad (my sister was the financial, as she understood finances better than me), and when my mum became demented, my dad could not or would not make any decisions about her care. Since it was arranged, I took the decisions off his shoulders. When he had a fatal heart condition, I knew his wishes and took over as well. It was damned hard, but at least it was legally in place.
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There’s a project uploading photos by an RIP naturalist. The slides survived so the photos are here. But years of notes were discarded. Now it is a mission to try and work out what and where from notes on slides.
I would suggest editing and curating your data, then storing it in a few places. Don’t rely completely on paid storage - if you (or your estate) stop paying - the data will still be gone.
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I don’t. But I also have never ever made a site for free, so I wasn’t making that suggestion out of any type of experience. It just seems like a fairly easy and accessible thing to do. Good to know though!
I hereby redact that suggestion.
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The point of digitization should not be to replace physical copies entirely, but rather as a back-up and a means of dissemination. I don’t recommend scrapping your physical copies. But the physical copies themselves aren’t important to you, I hope, but rather the data that they represent.
Your notebooks are data; that cannot be disputed. When viewed as data, the “industry standard” backup approach is the “3-2-1 rule”. Here’s how the data folks at York University Library express it:
The risk of losing data due to human error, natural disasters, or other mishaps can be mitigated by following the 3-2-1 backup rule:
- Have at least three copies of your data.
- Store the copies on two different media.
- Keep one backup copy offsite
Right now your notebooks are one copy, on one media type, and in one location. It doesn’t take a major natural disaster to wipe out all of your data. Currently I see the fire department do a run past where I live on a more-than weekly basis. And house (or library) fires are just one of many risks.
You could photocopy it to make two copies, however that risks deterioration via generation loss. Significant generation loss is far less likely with properly managed digital files and making digital copies is far less effort than making another physical copy.
Thinking about the 3-2-1 rule, having a digital copy immediately gets you to 2 copies or more if you want. Having a copy “in the cloud” (Dropbox; sync.com; Google Drive) provides you with “2 locations”. But I would strongly suggest that you upload the data to a reputable archive before you expire, since one cannot fully rely on executors or heirs to do so.
To an individual, yes, however standards have evolved sufficiently that the file specification won’t be an issue if an open standard is selected. And a well-managed digital archive will be constantly transferring data to ensure (1) data integrity and (2) data accessibility.
Regarding dissemination, if you stick your notebooks in a library, then they may be restricted to those users who can easily travel to that library. Your notebooks will likely be considered “rare books”, since they are one-of-a-kind, hence they will not be available for interlibrary loan. And such books can fall into the haze of copyright status uncertainty, meaning that the library will not permit them to be scanned to share with a researcher at another institution. And even if you ensure a proper license agreement, the library may charge external users for the cost of scanning further inhibiting dissemination.
It can be a !%#$ quagmire.
Please trust me here; I’ve personally dealt with that, despite me being at another major research institution at the time. That is why I am urging you to (1) self-digitize, (2) license appropriately, and (3) upload a copy to a major digital archive. Those actions circumvent a host of potential future problems and give your data the best chance of not being “deleted” by unlucky circumstances before you come to the point of inability to prevent it.
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What is the long term future of our data on iNaturalist?
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I would make sure everything goes from iNat to GBIF and any other website possible, it makes chances of data survival bigger than having it all on one server.
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When will the big solar flare happen? Nobody can say. It will happen sometime, and it will wipe out not just iNaturalist but all digital everything. Including financial systems, distribution systems, and likely the government. We’re talking societal collapse, martial law if we’re lucky.
So I wouldn’t sweat the database. I hope not to be alive on that day.
Having made that grim statement…One cannot be paralyzed by future apocalypses. So for now, digitize! Because the reality today is that if it cannot be searched, it effectively does not exist.
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