Duurzame toegankelijkheid en buitenaardse wezens

Wie kan, zonder te spieken, lezen wat hieronder staat?

Een van de cruciale onderdelen van het OAIS-model is representation information, Alan Ake schrijft daarover:

The Data Object itself, in a digital repository, is simply a string of bits. What the Representation Information does is convert (or tell us how to convert) these bits to something more meaningful. It describes the format or data structure concepts which should be applied to the bit sequences which in turn result in more meaningful values, such as characters, pixels, tables etc.

This is termed structure information. Ideally Representation Information should also contain semantic information, eg what human language the text is written in, what any scientific terminology means, and so on (4.2.1.3.1). By including both structure and semantic information we are future-proofing ourselves as much as possible.

Preservation of RI is most easily done when the Representation Information is expressed in an easily understandable form, “such as ASCII” (4.2.1.3.2). What the Model is saying here is that it would be stupid to save the Representation Information in, say, a proprietary or weakly-supported file format, even if the Data Object itself is in such a format. The Representation Information can be printed out onto paper, if that helps.

En stel je bent na 1985 geboren, zou je dan nog weten wat je met deze schijf moet doen?

Dus, als we nu al niet meer snappen wat we een jaar of veertig geleden de ruimte in hebben gestuurd, hoe zorgen we dan dat we over, zeg honderd jaar nog een pdf-bestandje kunnen begrijpen?