From FierceBigData.com: “In a 2009 paper called ‘Preserving Astronomy’s Photographic Legacy: Current State and Future of North American Astronomical Plates,’ Wayne Osborn, department of physics at Central Michigan University, and Lee Robbins, department of astronomy at the University of Toronto, took up the effort to preserve more than three million photographs of star fields housed in North American institutions. The goal was not only to preserve them but to use them for study, a task made easier by today’s big data technology.”