Erik Sherman writes: “Everything dies: people, machines, civilizations. Even knowledge has a life span. Documents fade. Art goes missing. Entire libraries and collections can face quick and unexpected destruction. What we think is permanent isn’t. Digital storage systems can become unreadable in as little as three to five years. Librarians and archivists race to copy things over to newer formats. But entropy is always there, waiting in the wings. To complicate matters, archivists are now grappling with an unprecedented deluge of information. ‘Everything is being recorded all the time,’ says Joseph Janes, an associate professor at the University of Washington Information School.”