Archivists are used to advancing technology being a feature of their collections- media advances are a part and parcel of the management of collections. However, the rapid advances possible in the world of IT are something that many archivists will be happy to have only experienced so far in terms of the changes on their desk top PCs.

It may seem somewhat intimidating to commit your assets to technology that develops so quickly, so in this tutorial we're taking a look at the trends and prospects for development in IT mass storage, and we hope it will give you greater confidence in the future safety and accessibility of your collections. The tutorial is broken down into sections looking at different areas of technology, and includes links to numerous more in depth reports.

We start by looking at Storage Media (left button below), and within that we consider tape, magnetic disk, optical disk> and solid state media. We also take a look at infrastructure (right button below) including networking and internet developments, as well as a very brief look at operating systems.

What we are looking at are moving targets though. We hope you will be able to use this guide as a good jumping off point to finding out more about technology and trends.