Can CDs get mad cow disease?

Someone once said the power of the press belongs to those who own one. In today's era of media glut, owning a press isn't necessarily enough--that is, if someone else's can make enough noise to drown yours out. Health advocates, vegetarians, and animal rights types have rallied against the beef industry for years, and all their amassed efforts have likely made fewer converts to beef-free living than Oprah Winfrey's tossed-off pledge to swear off hamburgers because of mad cow disease. Never mind that we've been given plenty of reasons to attack the Cattlemen's Club without accepting unsubstantiated claims that a disease that's afflicted English cattle for ten years might suddenly reach the States. And never mind that as soon as the beef industry fights off Oprah's attack, the American mainstream will just as quickly start ignoring red-meat-related health concerns again. But at least for now, mass media addicts with easy access to more valid information sources will take Winfrey's off-hand jab as the new no-meat gospel.

But then a well-informed whisper never goes as far as a shoot-from-the-hip shout, and I've got a sheaf of letters from EMedia Professional readers frantic over CD data degradation claims in the mainstream press to prove it. The article in question, published in the February 16, 1998 issue of U.S. News and World Report, was written by Laura Tangley and bears the alarmist title, "Whoops, There Goes Another CD-ROM: Storing Information on Disk and Tape Is Convenient, But How Long Will It Last?"

The article makes a number of allegations about the impermanence and impending obsolescence of optical and magnetic storage media. Tangley cites our most carefully preserved print lineage--paper and parchment-based landmarks like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution--and argues that comparable cultural landmarks produced today, plus institutional staples like health and bank records and research data, will quickly disintegrate, as the storage media to which we've committed them deteriorates and the devices that can read them are thrown on the technological trash heap. "Average--quality CD-ROMs become unreliable--some can be read, some can't--after five years," she writes. "And even when tapes and disks remain intact, the hardware and software needed to read them may no longer be available."

Tangley's suggested source for these claims is a media stability study done by the St. Paul, Minnesota-based National Media Lab (NML). NML has done extensive research on the longevity of CD-R, CD-ROM, and other optical and magnetic storage media through "accelerated aging" testing. NML's findings are well-documented on the company's Web site (http://www.nml.org).

The findings themselves--alluded to in the U.S. News article--are a mixed bag, and well-summarized in an NML chart titled, "Life Expectancy of Various Information Storage Media." According to the chart, CD-ROM media from "all major vendors are acceptable for reliable data storage" for at least five years; all CD-R media brands are accredited for two years. The chart then reports that "the best vendors" of CD-ROM media can be expected to provide reliable data storage for 50 years; CD-R's best and brightest clock in at 30 years. The chart was reproduced (with attribution, but without permission, NML says) in the U.S. News article, with its content slightly altered to suggest that the vast majority of CD media would not survive their fifth birthdays.

It's a subtle distinction, but a significant one. The low-quality end of both media markets accounts for a small percentage of sales. Information on who to count on and who to avoid is available both from vendors and industry organizations like NML, SIGCAT, and Doculabs--too bad U.S. News never asked for it. And EMedia Professional has hardly been negligent in reporting on such studies and presenting them in a context that accentuates and clarifies the technical data, rather than obscuring it or bending it to fit some prefab polemic. Just flip back through some old issues and you'll find Hugh Bennett's September 1997 media compatibility piece (which assesses an NML study), Dana Parker's October 1995 column dispelling similarly off-base allegations, Matthew Leek's November 1995 report on CD-R longevity, and Katherine Cochrane's February 1996 article, "Is There a CD-R Media Problem?" Cochrane answered "No" by the way, but don't take my word for it--read the article (http://www.cd-info. com/CDIC/Technology/CD-R/Media/ problem.html).

Which is exactly the point. The real threat to the preservation of knowledge is not the media we store it on, but rather, ignoring the resources we have in the first place. If the first and last word you read on CD media longevity is Laura Tangley's one-sentence dismissal in a U.S. News article whose primary source--the National Media Laboratory--claims she never even contacted them, you'll certainly think twice before buying CD hardware and committing valuable documents to CD. And next week, you'll see Newsweek's "Conventional Wisdom" index pointing up for CDs and be selling the farm to invest in a top-of-the-line duplicator or jukebox. Which is probably a good decision if you're a cattle farmer--that is, unless Oprah goes to town on Philips the next day.

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