With the abundance usage and reliance on internet material comes the problem of organizing and preserving the data as noted by Roy Rosenzwieg’s in "Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era". Rosenzwieg raised a genuine concern for historians and many other scholars such as librarians, curator, and archivist. There are disadvantages and advantages in preserving information in digital form. One of the disadvantages are the ephemeral quality of digital information. In under 50 years the form or instrument used to preserve the digital information may become obsolete in light of the rapid technological advancement. Another disadvantage is if there is one tiny problem or corruption with the diskes or files in which it is saved the entire work might be lost completely. Also there is the issue of who will continue to fund the continuation of the archive after the originator is gone? How can one assure that the site will continue to exist? There are many issue that arise with the idea of how best to deal with internet materials and abundance of things online, but with all the problems, Rosenzwieg argues that it is necessary to start an attempt to preserve the information. Even though he recognizes that it is impossible to create a flawless retainment of documents or the "perfect plan" of implementation, it is better to save some then none. The advantage about placing things on internet archive and digitizing materials is so that many people can access the infomation with more efficiency and convinence. Information can be made readily available to the public. There can be an availablity of numerous perspectives on one single issues that can complicate and enrich historical perspectives.
On a personal level, the essay brought to mind the idea of perserving emails. Emails are regarded as a quick form of memo and is not appear to be on the fore front of the need to put email in preservation as mentioned in Rosenzweig’s essay. Nonetheless, with the recent emergence of google email, the idea of the site is so that the users will have enough space in the mailbox so that they will not have the need to delete a single email. Also google brought the idea of facilitating searching mechanism through your emails. Just to think, many years in the future, instead of going through paper bound diaries and letters, people can find ways to access online journals and emails of an important character. If only there are ways to continue preserving emails sites and some ways to posthumously make public emails account in an archival forms.