Preserving the Legacy: How Digitization and Metadata are Saving Sports History

The Race Against Physical Decay and Loss

There is a ticking clock on all physical media that most people do not really think about until it is too late. Nitrate film from the early twentieth century is highly flammable and prone to decomposition, while VHS tapes from the eighties and nineties are suffering from magnetic degradation. I have seen archives where the only copy of a historic game is literally crumbling in a box somewhere.