Digital archiving: A growth field

The New York Times recently reported on the growing need for people skilled in digital archiving, aka digital asset management aka digital preservation aka information management consultants.

No matter what you call it, this is a growth field, with huge growth opportunities.

"Literature, film, scientific journals, newspapers, court records, corporate documents and other material, accumulated over centuries, needed to be adapted for computer databases. Once there, it had to be arranged — along with newer, born-digital material — in a way that would let people find what they needed and keep finding it well into the future."

In the sciences, huge amounts of data have already been created that can no longer be accessed. I've seen scientists weep over disks that contained files no computer on earth could still read. A writer friend of mind paid hundreds of dollars to recover files from a set of disks from a computer format that only lasted on the market for one year.

Not only does this material need to be accessed again, it needs to be preserved in a format that will be adaptable again in the future.

Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the spectrum, look at all of the world's medical data that only exists in hard copy. As we move to electronic medical records, all of that information needs to get translated into digital formats, and become accessible on everything from computer screens to smartphones.

This job isn't just about scanning old documents -- it's about information, its management, and its preservation. It's about creating a library, a history, and a future for the world's information. It's about creating solutions to bridge one technology format to another, while thinking ten steps ahead for the future. This will require some brilliant minds in software development, scanning technologies, communications, and strategy.

Sound interesting? The article quotes salary ranges of $70-$100,000. I'd say that's worth a look.