Archiving and Preservation

#status/ongoing
  1. The internet is an ephemeral place. What is there today and has been there for many years may one day disappear - without a warning, without a trace, and maybe without even the approval of its creators.
  2. Digital files will eventually rot in storage. Old formats will become obsolete. Maintenance is required.
  3. The world is unpredictable. A fire. A flood. A war. Lifetimes and generations worth of memories, culture, information, gone in a flash. There must be more than one way to preserve.

(Book of Hours brainrot side comment: Preservation, the Art of existence continued. So that what survives is renewed, so that what we endure we will not endure alone.)

Text and Print

Book Repair and Rescue

Preservation Videos by SULPreservation (YT)

Book Repair On A Budget Playlist by UNCG Special Collections and University Archives (YT)

Digitizing Written and Print Mediums

Art from Sketchbooks

  1. Scan the page.
  2. Adjust levels until background is white and lines are dark enough.

Digitizing Text

Book-binding Resources

Sea Lemon's DIY Bookbinding Methods Playlist (YT)
JamesDarrow's Bookbinding Tutorial with Images (dA)
Four Keys Book Arts' Bookbinding Basics Series (YT)

Web pages

Fanfiction

Information to Include

Other Things to Add

Formatting: Word

from here

  1. Set up margins
  2. Set up front of book
    1. Title page
    2. Title page part 2: title, author, publishing info
    3. Metadata: ratings, categories, tags, summary
    4. Table of contents: to use Word's TOC feature, use headings
  3. Start chapter 1 on an odd page.
  4. Set up chapters
    1. Copy-paste per chapter. Merge into preferred formatting.
    2. New Page every new chapter.
  5. Format text
    1. Create a new font style using preferred font choices. Select everything and apply.
    2. Or: set font ahead of time and merge formatting/
  6. Print
    1. Print on both sides, flip along SHORT edge.
  7. Bind

Tumblr Blogs and Posts

Tumblr posts are highly susceptible to link rot - it's very easy to change blog URLs, rendering links to that post or links within the post itself useless. Highly recommend taking a screenshot of the post (at risk of photo manipulation) - making sure to include the blog URLs and the dates published - or creating your own Tumblr blog to reblog and archive them there.

Posts tend to have large longevities - it's common to see posts from 10 years ago still circulating. If it's a "masterpost" of resources containing several other links, check those links and archive them as well, or update the post in the comments with the site's new URLs, as the links are likely dead.

Generally, reblogged posts and its images do not disappear even if OP deletes the original post, but anything under a "read more" is susceptible to loss if the blog changes URLs or deletes the post. Only posts or posts from users that have been banned - for any reason, fair or otherwise - will have their images become inaccessible.

(Tumblr has a history of unfair moderation towards its Black-American, Indigenous American, and trans communities, especially if they speak out about the inequalities they face. Pay attention to those bloggers and archive well-thought out posts and resources from them.)

Blog search tips, because the site's native search feature is terrible:

Twitter / X Posts

Incredibly difficult to interact with signed out since their API change.

Digital Files

General

Export to Open Formats

Proprietary formats can become obsolete once the software that opens them updates far enough or is lost. Any file that can only be opened by a single software MUST be converted to a more open, accessible one.

Storage Options

Audio Time-shifting

Wikipedia
Anything from radios, discord calls, podcasts, musics, etc.

  1. Acquire an audio cassette recorder. NOT a boombox.
  2. Connect tape recorder to PC. Set as headphones.
  3. Play audio media.
  4. Download and install Audacity (Wiki)
  5. Connect tape recorder to PC. Open Audacity. Set tape recorder as microphone.
  6. Record on Audacity. Play tape at regular speed.
  7. Trim and export digital file.

Images

See Also

Clothes Care, Repair, and Alteration
Recycling and Upcycling / DIYs

  1. Not necessarily pornographic or erotic. Reproductive health care, especially for women and queer people, and stories of even the mildest gay romance have often been targeted for destruction and censorship under the excuse of "removing pornography". And even then, pornography still deserves to be archived - it is not inherently "dirtier" or more "sinful"[2][3] than other types of entertainment. ↩︎

  2. INB4 someone screeches about CSA[3:1] and erotic material taken and distributed without the subjects' consent: those are abuse, exploitation, and sexual harassment and have zero legal or ethical reasons to be distributed. ↩︎

  3. Fiction is not reality. Porno of anime teenagers is not CSA because fictional characters are not actual children being exploited and abused. ↩︎ ↩︎