In a message dated 5/2/2006 4:56:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
[log in to unmask] writes:
Jim and I both think this is worthy of further discussion around the 
archival community and I think a good place to start is how does an 
archive evaluate the economic tradeoff? When does it make sense to 
try and preserve the content? When is it time to merely perform last 
rites without attempted recovery?
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If the material can be made part of "the iPod nation" then the decision could 
be partly based on whether one can imagine enough general interest to recover 
the cost of restoration through "museum sales" or some such. Of course this 
links to the copyrights issues.

Mike Csontos