Woolworth’s. American Motors. Circuit City. Rexall.
The litany of closed, bought out, or just defunct U.S. companies is long and replete with once proud and popular names. Some were victims of changing tastes and times, others may have morphed because of failure – or success – into other, unrecognizable entities.
For many, the record of their existence is the memories of customers who moved on, but still recall the names. Yellowing advertisements buried in library collections and hard to find may be the only solid evidence left that any of these companies existed at all.
Memories fail, too, and paper dries and crumbles to dust. That’s why more and more companies and agencies are investing in content management, business process improvement and simple electronic archive systems. The immediacy and permanency of the digital record, easily transferable to other formats as technology evolves, guarantees the records will always be there, through all the changes.
The more things change, the saying goes, the more they stay the same. Thanks to evolving technology, that’s truer than ever.
