Recording Historic Vessels - Historic Naval Ships Association

R ECORDING H ISTORIC V ESSELS10. Preserving the recordPaper and film-based archives still provide the simplest and most reliable form of storedrecords. They are not reliant on technology in order to be accessed and, if good paper,appropriate inks, photographic paper, and high quality slides are used and stored indaylight free, dry, fireproof conditions, do not readily degrade. Few vessel owners willhave access to CAD programmes, and therefore paper (or preferably the more stabletracing film) plans may be the only option. Where possible, these should be scanned tocreate vector files (which a good print bureau can undertake), but if this is not practicalthey should be saved as raw or TIFF files with a high resolution (700+ dpi).Notwithstanding the above, many records produced will be in a digital format. It isessential that these are copied and the copies deposited in separate locations. It isrecommended that the number of formats is restricted to:• documents in RTF (rich text file) format which can be read by both PCsand Macs• pictures and scans in raw or TIFF 7 or• drawings in DWG format 8This is not to say that these are the best formats, but they are the ones most likely to besupported for the greatest length of time. Nevertheless, all digital records should bereviewed every five years to ensure that they are still readable and steps undertaken toconvert them if formats are likely to change before the next review. National Historic Shipswill revisit this issue every five years and issue new guidance as necessary.Back-up records should be held in alternative formats and stored separately inappropriate conditions. We will be taking on-going advice from National Libraries andMuseums, Libraries & Archives and the Forum on Information Standards in Heritage(FISH) on best practice for record creation, storage, and retrieval.7 Tagged Information File Format. Files have the extension .TIF.8 This is the AutoCAD format.29