I thought that the bibliophiles among us would find this article from Nature's news service a light in a pretty compact darkness. Now all the boffins have to do is to find a means to prolong the life of the devices that we use to store our electronic messages so that it approach a fiftieth of what one can obtain with good old paper (the oldest existing printed work - Chinese, of course - dates from the 9th century)....
Henri
Organic bath saves paper from decay
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- Grand Panjandrum
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Organic bath saves paper from decay
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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While not printed per se, I thought the Rosetta Stone was considerably older . . . and as for the Dead Sea Scrolls . . .
Regards//Larry
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
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- Grand Panjandrum
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Larry, the Rosetta Stone is, if I understand the matter aright, a piece of granite, and the Dead Sea Scrolls are written on parchment. While both these materials are stabile and long-lasting, neither represents a practical alternative for the storage of the quantities of information we use today. Paper, however - a nearly two-millennia-old Chinese invention - does represent a pratical alternative for documents that are to preserved for periods longer than twenty years or so. In any event, I thought the Nature article might just possibly be of interest for those of us who are fascinated by scribbles on old scraps of paper....
Henri
Henri
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?
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- Grand Panjandrum
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- Grand Panjandrum
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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With the volume of information we are deluged with, I'm not so sure paper is a viable solution, either. The cost of the paper is dwarfed by the cost of storage, indexing, and retrieval. One wrong move and it can all go up in smoke, especially so with the banning of Halon. Of course, magnetic media has its own problems.Larry, the Rosetta Stone . . . and the Dead Sea Scrolls . . . While both these materials are stabile and long-lasting, neither represents a practical alternative for the storage of the quantities of information we use today. Paper, however - a nearly two-millennia-old Chinese invention - does represent a pratical alternative for documents that are to preserved for periods longer than twenty years or so. . . .
Don't get me wrong; I prefer a book to a screen any day for novels and such, but for information that needs to be retrieved and shared, I don't think paper is viable in the long run.
Alas, I have not a premium subscription to Nature . . . if it did have any details, it might have been interesting. I'd be curious how the method described differs from just using acid-free paper. Maybe in the local library one of these days . . .. . .In any event, I thought the Nature article might just possibly be of interest for those of us who are fascinated by scribbles on old scraps of paper....
Henri
Regards//Larry
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
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- Grand Panjandrum
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- Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2005 8:24 am
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Alas, I, too, am in want of a premium subscription to Nature, and can access only the free news service. But I don't think the point here is whether or no acid-free paper (and, not least, inks) should be used now, but rather how to preserve documents written by people who weren't so far-sighted (or maybe they didn't want us to read them, five hundred years on). As for the storage (and, let it be said, retrieval !) problems to which information on paper gives rise, having experience with hospital archives I am entirely in agreement with Larry. Where we may disagree is that I am not at all certain that the other solutions that have been proposed are so very much better. Perhaps more Rosetta stones ?...
Henri
Henri
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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Moving to stone would cause us to use our resources widely. I know I wouldn't want to be hefting them things around!. . . Perhaps more Rosetta stones ?...
Henri
Regards//Larry
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
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