Rescuing and recovering lost or endangered data

Abstract

This paper summarizes the vital importance to the scientific community of rescuing historic scientific data, presently in various informal, non-digital formats, from likely oblivion and making them accessible digitally for trend analyses. It proposes models whereby historic biodiversity and astronomical data can be recovered as Canadian initiatives, in the hope of stimulating further discussion of such simple yet essential rescue missions in the context of Canadian scientific research.

Keywords

• Historical data
• Archival data
• Non-digital data