What do you do to counter technological obsoletion?

The Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin, is carrying out research into composers’ preservation of digital records. Composers are asked to complete an online questionnaire, detailing how they store and their digital work, and how they ensure its continued use well into the future.

Questions cover a number of areas, such as how composers save files, what kinds of software they use, how they deal with techology becoming obsolete and how frequently they make backups.

Jonathan Grimes of the CMC writes that the findings of this research will help the centre improve its own digital management systems. ‘This involves such things as looking at the ways in which we are currently archiving digital materials, the formats we are storing them in, and how we deal with migration of files to newer formats over time,’ he says. ‘The aim of the project will be to develop a digital preservation plan for CMC which will help future-proof the archiving of digital materials from composers, as well as providing some resources on CMC’s site for composers to use for the ongoing digital preservation of their work.’

Composers are asked to complete the questionnaire, which takes only a few minutes to complete, by Monday, 26 March.

cmc.ie