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Personal Digital Preservation Sonnet

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The following is a guest post by Tess Webre, intern with NDIIPP at the Library of Congress

Shall I compare thee to a closed format/ thou art more open and accessible. – Author after 3 coffees.
In honor of William Shakespeare’s 449th birthday on April 23rd (observed) and as a tie-in with the recent digital humanities day, I have decided to make a Digital Stewardship sonnet. This is a traditional sonnet; it has iambic pentameter and everything – courtesy of Mr. Boswell’s 11thgrade AP English. See, I was paying attention – however, I cannot attest to the content being traditional.

William Shakespeare, from tonynetone on Flickr

Personal Digipres Sonnet
By Tess Webre

Want to ensure a file’s longevity
So that you can always access the bits?
First know, it’s your responsibility
And you must use your cunning and your wits.

Organize your files, that’s simple enough.
In an open format, you know the drill
Update storage media – care ain’t tough –
Keep dispersed copies, just in case of spills.

To help, for we know that this might sound like Greek,
The Signal
is a blog we hope you love,
It also would be good to take a peek
At digitalpreservation.gov.

Keep studying; your skills will be greater.
‘Til next time I wish you all safe data.

 

Comments (2)

  1. Why invent one, when Shakespeare wrote Sonnet 122?

    Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
    Full charactered with lasting memory,
    Which shall above that idle rank remain,
    Beyond all date, even to eternity:
    Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart
    Have faculty by nature to subsist;
    Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
    Of thee, thy record never can be missed.
    That poor retention could not so much hold,
    Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
    Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
    To trust those tables that receive thee more:
    To keep an adjunct to remember thee
    Were to import forgetfulness in me.

  2. Some things never change….
    Thank you both for interesting, well crafted poetry that touches both the intellect and the soul.

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