Blog post 100..sort of a birthday...

This is my 100th blog post and I thought I would discuss something I am thinking about at the moment, the permanence or lack of it, of the Web pages I visit, and other electronic records.

Archiving/preserving Web pages and electronic records for history.
Do we want to? Why do we want to? How do you select what to archive? How do you do it (technology etc.)To migrate or not to migrate.

To archive this blog would be print it out or possibly save to disk, and what about the metadata...etc
Do I want to archive the blog? I would have to think about that, not sure.
If I want to archive which posts? How much, what's relevant?

I am reminded of a story I once read about a class in the future asked to analyse online diaries of the people from a couple of centuries prior when this type of thing became popular, and the masterful way the main character analysed and understood the change in attitudes to using the electronic diaries. She looked at the feelings of the people while the rest of the class laughed at their posts.
This gives me pause to think that would I want anyone reading my daily post in the future? Would I want it analysed? I can't see it being very useful at all.
[but "um" then again I am online and you can read it...lol]

I suppose that is my main point, who decides what is useful? What will be needed from an historical point of view. As an example, the banner on my blog is a new one this year and my older one no longer is on the page at all whether you look at an old post or not. I didn't keep a copy... I am not saying for a minute that my blog is the type of thing,to be archived, but I could think of a few Blogs and memorable posts that I think should be kept for historical/cultural/social purposes, but would you?

(Another thing, I haven't any info on the photo, I've had it for a while...apologies to the owner, but it illustrates my point about permanent records and the somewhat inpermanent electronic ones. I googled it and it appeared on a page for the City of Newport Library Service in the UK...not where I got it and a new page this year...my bad for not keeping the reference.)

Just some thoughts, FeralTB-)