20-Year Prospect

20-Year Prospect

People have been keeping records since they made a sideways line mean something different than two vertical lines. You could thank (blame?) archivists for civilization's existence. As humanity has matured, so has archiving. In the last twenty years, we've gone from complex organizational systems of billions of pieces of paper to putting it all "online in clouds," as the kids are saying nowadays.

Over the next twenty years, archiving will continue to grow into the digital realm. Physical documents will still need organization, but the vast majority of media and communication will be digital; most of it already takes place digitally. 

Since there's so much more information out there than ever before, future archivists may have to take on the burden of helping to decide what's worth preserving. It's important to preserve culture, but will that Facebook post you made last week about Mad Max being good, but not that good really benefit future generations?

No. No it won't. See? We're going to need people like you.