FW: Government/NIST survey: How Long Do You Want Digital Storage Media to Last?

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

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http://www.dvda.org/html/nist_survey.php
  
   Government Survey: 
   How Long Do You Want Digital Storage Media to Last?
 
Deadline for submission: May 31, 2005

For more than 15 years, recordable optical disc technology has proven to
be a very versatile and convenient storage and distribution medium. It has
become the medium of choice in many government agencies as well as many
organizations within the private sector. It has also been shown that both
recordable CD and DVD can be very stable and robust. But, as occurs with
many successful technologies, a multitude of suppliers have entered the
worldwide marketplace with varying degrees of product quality.

Since there is no way to distinguish disc quality at the time of purchase,
it could result in the acquisition of questionable media for long-term
storage applications. This issue may become more acute in lowest-bid
procurement.

The DVD Association, in collaboration with the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST), is sponsoring this survey conducted by
one of its� technical working groups, the Government Information
Preservation Working Group (GIPWoG).  GIPWoG is working with NIST to
establish a long-term, or archival, standard measurement for recordable CD
and DVD media. This measurement will serve as a standard industry test to
determine the archival quality of recordable optical media. The test will
not measure how actual media longevity, but will determine if it lasts at
least a minimum number of years. The number of years used in the test
standard will be determined by your responses.

http://www.dvda.org/html/nist_survey.php