Preserving documents

How do we know about the various dynasties that ruled over India many centuries ago? How do we know of our ancient history? Archaeological finds are a great clue; so are the structures built by the kings and queens during their reign. But if their names and their regnal periods weren't documented in some form, we wouldn't know about them. Some or many accounts of our glorious history have been 'documented' through oral traditions that have been preserved through the 'guru-shishya' parampara that was the norm. Many kings, especially Emperor Ashoka ensured that his commands were cut into rocks at various places across his kingdom. God knows how many rocks were destroyed over the years, but what remains is still enough to ensure that we know a lot about the Emperor. Probably he was among the early rulers to have multiple copies of his edicts across his empire, so that even if some 'copies' got destroyed or damaged, whatever remained would still give a glimpse into his rule. Emperor Ashoka, the first 'rock-copier'?

Paper came later and then the printing press. That revolutionized the writing and making multiple copies of events for posterity. The documents that we know as medieval history. However, the inherent nature of paper is that it is difficult to preserve it for long and it deteriorates. Compare that to the rock cut edicts to see which is more permanent!

Modern days have electronic means of documentation. This brings a new challenge. Can you access any old document or report that you may have written in electronic format on your old computer (PC XT or PC AT) using a 'primitive' Word software on your Apple Mac or Windows Word 2021? Proprietary software has its benefits, but also challenges in ensuring that important documents can be archived for posterity and accessed successfully decades later.

An article that caught my eye earlier today reminded me of this conundrum. You can read the article How to properly archive your digital files. We cannot be like Emperor Ashoka and chisel our documents on rocks, nor can we ensure longevity of our documents if we retain them in paper format. So what then should we do? Just read the article and follow the advise of the expert here.

During the pandemic year (2020), when I had nowhere to go and nothing worthwhile to do, I looked at all the old photo albums that I had collected over the years. The albums that 'documented' in pictorial form the 'history' of my family. I thought that I could use the time productively by scanning all the photos - some from the early days of my father, and a few of his wedding (that was in 1946, by the way). So I scanned about 1000 photos, categorized them into digital albums, and saved them in Google Photos which hopefully is open source and won't be impossible to open a few decades from now by my grandchildren and great grandchildren (my sons, Anirudh, Arvindh, and Sairam may please note!). If they are interested, that is!