After the Fire: HP Archivist Pledges to Rebuild | Hacker News Reader

After the Fire: HP Archivist Pledges to Rebuild

spectrum.ieee.org

25 pointsMilnerRoute13 comments

"Many archives of that age and size don’t get digitized because the papers are of different sizes and thicknesses. It is expensive and it is difficult to make sure you have the necessary accuracy."

I don't buy this. I've archived a lot of family documents. Putting them on a flat bed scanner and pushing the button works just fine - it is not expensive nor difficult nor inaccurate.

When I was on a trip and had only brief access to a big pile of old letters, I simply took out my phone and took photos of the papers, one by one. It took literally a few seconds a page. I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but later going through the photos, I was very pleased with the results.

I suspect that sometimes archivists get obsessed with perfection, and wind up with nothing as a result. What's really valuable about the HP archive was the text, not the coffee stain on the paper. The archive copy only has to be good enough to read the text, and for that a common handheld phone camera is way more than adequate.

It's also not difficult to take a picture of every document with the right downwards facing camera rig either, and much quicker. That way you can do cleanup and orientation correction in post processing. Both ways beat not doing any digization at all.

With good lighting (I used sunlight on a dinner table) you don't even have to worry about camera shake from a handheld phone. I got sharp pictures every time.

Especially with the great improvements in phone cameras today---many years ago, even dedicated digital cameras were considered inadequate for digitising, but the situation is very different now, particularly when the choice is between a suboptimal copy and none at all.

Those of you who have read "cammed" ebooks may remember what it was like back then.

Perhaps HP missed the mobile revolution?

It's an example of "storing a problem" - a person enjoys doing a type of work or solving a type of problem, so they save that work for later, or subconsciously extend the work. In this way, they can always solve their favorite problems. Sometimes these are side projects.

Well,

The way I read the article, apparently copies do exist of all or most of the documents.

    Putting the rest together is going to be like making a
    patchwork quilt out of scraps. Fortunately, annotated
    indexes of the Packard and Hewlett—box by box, folder 
    by folder—exist, with copies stored on a variety of
    computers, both personal and corporate.

So the problem is that these are piecemeal copies scattered around the various pieces of HP.

...and hopefully they also salvage as much as they can from the remains of the fire --- paper is flammable, but from what I've read, densely-packed documents can char on the outside but remain intact on the inside, since the carbonised layer can act as an effective protective insulator.

(Anyone who has tried to roast thick pieces of meat may have seen the same effect --- burnt on the outside, but bloody raw on the inside.)

Yes, and rather ironic that the maker of scanners, all-in-one printers, and backup solutions is incapable of preserving its company history by not even scan or take photos of its museum inventory.

This so disappointing to hear. I actually just clocked up 20 years with "the company" (my path was via DEC, Compaq, HP and now HPE). I mean HP was all about document printing and scanning, as well as massive storage and data lifecycle technology.

How many different models of scanners have they made over the years?

And backup solutions too:

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/storage/data-protection-solutions....

"I don't have funding at this point" - seems strange when it's a corporate asset. Should a University take over the archive?

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