Whither travel slides?

The suggestions provided by the readers for preserving travel slides all were very good (Oct. ’07, pg. 46).

The first priority should be setting them up so you can enjoy them and, after that, your children and perhaps your grandchildren, but after that who knows? Or cares? How many millions of pictures are being passed to posterity? Will posterity have time to look at them?

But, seriously, if you want to preserve them, I think Ronald Ross came closest to defining the real problem. I have been saving electronic data since the 1960s and have witnessed generation after generation of formats come and go.

The stuff I recorded first is still in a readable format, but the equipment needed to read it no longer exists. It’s not like a book; you can’t still count on reading it after 500 years. If you want to keep it available, you must rerecord it periodically to the newest formats or it will be lost.

It’s fine doing it yourself. . . until you attain a certain age, then someone else will have to do it. You could give it to a library, but how much can they absorb? And will they update formats? Or keep old equipment? Imagine yourself a librarian 100 years from now.

My suggestions — sort your pictures; pick the best 100 or so, maybe more (interesting people, family, landscapes subject to change, buildings of interest which may disappear, etc.), print them in colorfast inks and record them electronically.

Give them to someone who cares. Keep the rest for your own enjoyment, and buy a good slide projector.

STEWART WINN

Williamsburg, VA