I would consult http://www.dpconline.org/ and 
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/ .  --Kevin

On 2:59 PM, Daniel Mondekar wrote:
> Dear Digital Medievalists and TEI members,
>
> I have a question about preservation of digital content especially
> medieval manuscripts. I am writing a small article on the topic and I
> have consulted a lot sources (papers, handbooks) but most of them do not
> say anything about the “life span” of the data in specific formats. To
> clarify this – a .doc file crated in 1995. Will be most likely
> unreadable in 2010. What about other formats? Has anyone done some
> research on “life span” of a specific version of digital formats and
> when it becomes clear that the new version and the old one are not
> compatible anymore? And here I am talking about pdf, rtf, doc (and all
> office files), djvu, tiff, jpg , mpg etc. (texts and images especially)
>
> In my work I am also making a small remark on XML as a data container
> since it is, in my opinion, the best way to go and the standard will
> surely be around for years. But what kind of steps do you make to ensure
> the preservation of documents that have been encoded in xml
>
> I would also like to hear if there are opposing views on xml.
>
> I also have the same question about the media. I found some research
> about the longevity of CDs and DVDs but I am also interested in other
> media like older hard disks, zip drives and magnetic media.
>
> I am sorry to bother you with this, but I can use any help I can get
>
> Thank you in advance
>
> Daniel Mondekar
>