Dear colleagues,
For about 25 years I had an email account at University College London. It was "
ucgadkw@euclid.ucl.ac.uk" from 1988, and then "
ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk" with aliases to "
wujastyk@ucl.ac.uk" and "
d.wujastyk@ucl.ac.uk". After leaving UCL in 2009 I was given honorary status, so the accounts continued, as did access to my filestore, that for many years was the INDOLOGY website.
But that has all now been unplugged and switched off. I was not informed or warned about this, and a UCL computer support person has just told me that it is unlikely that I'll be given access to my old files because apparently they don't belong to me, but to UCL ("work for hire"). I have a backup, but it is slightly out of date.
There's obviously a lesson here: if you care about your work, don't store it exclusively on a university computer. Strange thing to say, but unfortunately true.
It's not so bad, though, since buying personal space on a server is so cheap and easy these days. And email accounts with Google etc. are free and good. So one need not feel dependent on university facilities.
Best,
Dominik