Time capsules usually are lost due to thievery, secrecy or poor planning. The international register has been developed to record the existence of all buried Time Capsules. When you register your time capsule you will need to make a decision about what information is made public concerning your Time Capsule.
This is extremely important to consider carefully.
Some of the considerations you will need to evaluate for your own circumstance:
- Do you want people to know that you have a time capsule? where it is buried? what's in it? and when to open it. If not HOW will the future know this information? If it was a highly public event - no need to keep this information private
- What is the likelihood someone else will use the public information and dig it up before its opening date? Are the contents valuable?
- What is the likelihood no one remembers where it was buried?
- What is the likelihood of you being around at the opening date? If you are in doubt, who will know where and when to open it
With this in mind we have separated mandatory information and optional information for your time capsule record:
MANDATORY INFORMATION:
- Name of your Time Capsule
- Name of the owner
- An email address (which is never shared publicly)
- Description of the Purpose of the time capsule
- Date Capsule was sealed and deposited
- What is your container made of
- Provide instruction on maintaining the PRIVACY / SECRECY of your Time Capsule.
The above record will ensure that someone (in particular the Digital Preservation Trust) knows about the existence of your time capsule. However - no one would be able to find it, or know when to open it.
Your possible options to overcome this would be...
- if its a personal capsule - put the information in your will or leave the information with someone else
- provide the information of who / how to obtain this information on the library card
OPTIONAL INFORMATION:
- My instructions on where to obtain the precise location and any opening instructions
- Organization information
- Date you would like the capsule to be opened
- Address and Precise location of the Time Capsule
- Contents of the Time Capsule
-Does the container bear on its outer surface a message or instructions to the future finder? If yes, what is it? Do you have any specific opening instructions?
