[-empyre-] Who decides and what to preserve

["Sharmin Choudhury" <sharminc@dstc.edu.au>]

I am not sure if anyone has brought this up but this is something I think is
important. PANIC does not specify what to preserve and does not rate digital
objects by content. We leave it to the curatorial organisation to make that
decision. Yet how a curatorial organisation would come to a decision
fascinates me, because often what we consider not worth saving is exactly
what the future generations might consider as being important. As a case in
point, the ancient Egyptians did not think it very important to record the
lives of the ordinary folk, the workers who built the pyramids and so worth.
Yet one of most important discoveries in recent times have been camps for
the said workers where the workers have left their mark and bits and pieces
from their daily lives. Anyone have any comment in this regard?


Sharmin Tinni Choudhury
Research Engineer
DSTC PTY LTD