Saving your work

Several years ago a pioneer missionary who was translating the Bible into Toaripi encountered tragedy. His house at Moru London Missionary Society station in Gulf Province was destroyed by fire. The missionary, Rev Dr Bert Brown  had almost completed the Bible and all his work went into flames.

However the late Rev Brown who has been a well loved missionary by the Toaripi people was determined to continue the task. In 1980 the complete Toaripi Bible was dedicated. This determined missionary persisted in those days when there were no computers.

Recently a SIL translator had her computer stolen. She had worked very hard to write a TEE course. However she will have to start all over again.

In the DTE department two years ago our main computer used by the Secretary crashed. All our typed course notes were lost. Fortunately we were able to recover the data base.

These three stories show that we must save our work on CDs, floppy disk, flash drives and other means. Even if you have a hard copy somewhere in a book, keep the book in a safe place as well. Keep all your notes that you scribbled on as well.You never know that you will need the copies in the future.

Do not forget to make back up copies. Keep all your copies of work safely stored away in a filing cabinet.
It is better to work on a few books at a time. Here at DTE since we want our books to go out on the hands of our students, we are working on several books at the same time.

Here at the DTE department we are typing some of the books while other notes are being scanned. It is good to have a scanner and CD burner. When you want to record something you can easily copy it. The good thing about CDs is that they are lighter then carrying 5-6 books which may cost you so much if you travel by air.

Not only that but ants and other insects will eat the paper and therefore it is good to save you work as soon as you can. In places where there are frequent blackouts, you must keep saving your work in the computer.
Keep you computer hidden away, if it is a laptop.

After publishing your book, send a copy to any Library so it will be kept safely. I will be back with more tips and hints but at the moment always keep your work in a safe place stored physically or digitally.