A variety of approaches is being studied, including set-aside of a portion of subscription revenues, separation of subscriptions into current awareness and archival portions, and other options. The primary archive must remain separate from any possibility of unauthorized alteration, as might occur if it was used in the active online system. Consequently, the primary archive will be held on media that are separate and distinct from AIP's online service. Refreshing is that process which ensures that the medium chosen for archival storage remains free of errors. Techniques used to refresh an archive include the periodic retensioning and verification of magnetic tapes, the periodic copying of archives from existing media to new media of the same type or of new type, and the verification of file existence against the master archive file list.
Migration involves the transformation of archival data from one format to another.
At that point, AIP will decide if transformation of all JPEG figures in the archive is warranted. Such decisions will be primarily based on whether the tools that use the new standard continue support for files in the prior standard. If they do not, then the archive format should be migrated. No, only when the changes are so substantial as to require all customers to sign the new Agreement. AIP is still considering what will be included.