The originals of most sources that genealogist use today reside on paper. Many have been digitized to allow easy access, but the original is still a physical piece of paper in some archive.
As more 'original' sources and more 'research documentation' go online, is it possible it will become outmoded and information will be lost.
For example, I don't have my late father's pc anymore. I copied off it what I thought I needed - but in retrospect may not have been thorough enough. I exported a gedcom from his software and have kept that for the last 5 years. But if I went to recreate his data today I could no longer do that since the programs, data formats, etc no longer exist.
The above paragraph is an example of potentially losing 'research', either my own or of a third party. As more data transitions to being only being available online (eg an obituary, a family reunion photo, etc), should we be doing something to preserve this data for future generations of genealogists?
The digital image of an obituary in an 1880 newspaper can be a prinary source because the it's really just like a 'citation' to the paper that got scanned. It would still be possible to go back to the paper original is there was any question of authenticity of the image. But with an ecopy of a webpage containing an obituary, is my copy of that site still useable as a primary source? Once the webpage disappears, my copy can not be authenticated.
There are some projects to 'archive' the internet. Is any thought being put into 'genealogical relevant' archives?
Is there anything I should be doing to archive my work and e-sources I use?
Are there standards, recommendations, best practices for preservation of genealogically-relevant digital data?
I am asking this question in GFH instead of digital-preservation because it is genealogy specific.