Digital information lasts forever, or five years - whichever comes first, says a senior computer scientist at RAND Corp.

The problem is that computer experts are finding out that under less-than-optimal conditions, digital tapes and disks, including CD-ROMs, can deteriorate in as little as five to 10 years. And the decay, although it happens gradually, isn't evident until it's too late, says the founder of Voyager Co., which makes commercial CD-ROM books and games.

"CDs have a tendency to degrade much faster than anybody, at least in the companies that make them, is willing to predict." At the same time, as data is ported from an antiquated platform to a newer system, often there are bits that fail to make the transition. Sometimes it's just a matter of footnotes disappearing, but sometimes whole categories of data are lost. "It's like playing the child's game of Telephone. It doesn't take many translations from one media to another before you have lost significant aspects of the original data."

(Source: Business Week 20 Apr 98)