As a footnote, Library and Archives Canada is also worried about this, of course. Their mandate is to archive (some) of these exabytes – the ones that matter or can be considered part of the “National Heritage” (http://www.collectionscanada.ca/cdis/index-e.html). So (one of) their problem(s) is – how do we tell what matters and what doesn’t? Given limited management ability / space / archivists etc., do we archive / annotate Daniel’s and Andre’s blogs or Nelly Furtado’s MySpace site?
As far as absolute numbers of exabytes go, I don’t think that’s an especially good measure for anything. YouTube videos take up quite a lot of space but there aren’t more than a few million. It’s the “objects” and the information about them that matters.
Although the question of what a “digital object” actually consists of is also in question. Should it be the picture, or the picture with the text or the picture with the text in the blog…?
As a footnote, Library and Archives Canada is also worried about this, of course. Their mandate is to archive (some) of these exabytes – the ones that matter or can be considered part of the “National Heritage” (http://www.collectionscanada.ca/cdis/index-e.html). So (one of) their problem(s) is – how do we tell what matters and what doesn’t? Given limited management ability / space / archivists etc., do we archive / annotate Daniel’s and Andre’s blogs or Nelly Furtado’s MySpace site?
As far as absolute numbers of exabytes go, I don’t think that’s an especially good measure for anything. YouTube videos take up quite a lot of space but there aren’t more than a few million. It’s the “objects” and the information about them that matters.
Although the question of what a “digital object” actually consists of is also in question. Should it be the picture, or the picture with the text or the picture with the text in the blog…?