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Saving Our Digital Heritage

Op-ed in the Washington Post by Jim Barksdale and Francine Berman

Published 05/16/2007

It is commonly agreed that the destruction of the ancient Library of Alexandria in Egypt was one of the most devastating losses of knowledge in all of civilization. Today, however, the digital information that drives our world and powers our economy is in many ways more susceptible to loss than the papyrus and parchment at Alexandria.

Read the full op-ed in the Washington Post.

Jim Barksdale is the former chief executive of Netscape Communications Corp. and is an executive member of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program Advisory Council. Francine Berman is director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego. She holds the High Performance Computing Endowed Chair at UCSD's Jacobs School of Engineering.

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Washington Post