Digitizing the Cultural Fabric of Society.

The current digitization of the historical/cultural fabric of today's society will, in no small terms, eliminate a portion of our collective history. The days of going through shoe boxes filled with correspondence and photographs from our families is over. Remaining true and committed to a tradition of collecting our own personal histories has become increasingly absent and given the advances of the digital world as we know it surprisingly convienient to ignore.

Correspondence and photographs found during quests for our past are slipping away, bit by megabit. Images and letters from loved ones depicting vacations, war and snippets of daily life are true treasures and hold an intrinsic value to us personally and collectively. The lack of the tangible document, as replaced by easily deleted emails and digital snapshots, threaten our future and an understanding of our past. A keystoke and its gone. The real shoebox, not the hard drive, can be stashed away for years and continue to hold its treasures without becoming dependant on technology to reveal such simple secrets. The effort to unmask the content of antiquated digital files in the future could prove laborious and, sadly, not worth the finder's attention.

Film and paper are tangible. You can hold them in your hands. You can protect them. They are precious objects. You need not assume they are there, as with a digital file, because you can see them. Becoming reliant upon another's logarithm to protect and cherish your past is indeed risky at best.

Take matters into your own hands, take them time, fill the void, save your past, provide a record, future generations will be thankful you did.