Hi All-
Thanks Everyone for your input-
I, too, have txt files that have been around a few decades.
I've read the covers off of stacks of paperbacks, so my love of paper is not the question.
I'm having to downsize due to storage/display limits, (not to mention that moving & lifting those crates of books every time we move is getting difficult at best), and, tho I love my books, and some I will NEVER trade in for a digital edition, I still must pare them down to just a box or two.
I've already lost one collection to the whims of "technological advancements" where the "new" software as well as the computers will not access the older materials. I've kept copies of the software used to create the libraries, but the newer computers won't run it, we all know the story......
For most, if not all, I WILL have txt copies of, but some, such as cookbooks math & science workbooks, etc., NEED to have some formatting retained.
I think the epub / html files are going to be the way to store them.... MOST of the time HTML will display on newer systems. I'll just have to remember to go thru my library every few years, and upgrade the archive files to whatever the current standards are.... ah well.
For off-site storage, Yahoo, MSN/Hotmail and Google email services have been around the longest. I've got no compuctions about emailing myself zip files of the ones I can't bear to lose, and have no on-line source for.
I've moved Data onto cd/dvd discs, only to go back to them and find that the disc itself had issues and the data was unretrievable....nothing's perfect. and While I'd LOVE to have Triple-redundant storage, right now, other than dvd copies, that is a bit beyond my pocket money limits.
And Barty- If we get to post-acapolypse / Zombie times..... I'm gonna be TOOOOO busy saving-my-bacon to worry about computer file formats. My survival skills library WILL be / is paper (two sets). That's why the rest have to go digital. But THAT's another discussion.
Kathy the MamaDragon