the library of congress uses contemporary storage media (hard drives), and migrates everything to newer storage media as the previous media becomes obsolete and replacement hardware for that media stops being manufactured.
they have learned that stockpiling old reading hardware and software isn't sufficient to be able to read that media in the future.
they move everything to new media manually and archivists and volunteers work continuously to bring data on hardware more than one generation old into the current generation as everything progresses.
source: I read it in a detailed article about the LoC a couple of years ago and have forgotten where. :(
the library of congress uses contemporary storage media (hard drives), and migrates everything to newer storage media as the previous media becomes obsolete and replacement hardware for that media stops being manufactured.
they have learned that stockpiling old reading hardware and software isn't sufficient to be able to read that media in the future.
they move everything to new media manually and archivists and volunteers work continuously to bring data on hardware more than one generation old into the current generation as everything progresses.
source: I read it in a detailed article about the LoC a couple of years ago and have forgotten where. :(