Quote:
Originally Posted by phenomshel
But, Harry, this is exactly why I started collecting ebooks. To replace a physical book library that was lost to me in a move/divorce situation. Physical books cost the earth to ship. There is no reason that a "standard" format such as .rtf or .txt cannot last many, many years. I back my books up three or four times, on different media. I want these books to last my lifetime and beyond. I read things over and over and over again. The whole attraction of ebooks for me in the first place was the archival abilities. I don't have a Kindle because I don't want to be locked into Amazon's format, that's exactly why I bought the EZ Reader. I was tempted to get a Kindle 1 to access Amazon's selection, but no more. I'll wait til the publishers get their heads out of the sand, or I'll scan my own copies of the book for use on the reader. To me, my ebooks ARE a "lifetime investment". Realistic or not, that's how it is, and I feel it is very realistic.
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Well said, and I am in the same category as well. The main reason I have been going
paperless (or
trying, as much as I can) with everything is precisely because these are much easier to archive going forward.
Sure, there will be format changes -- and I will have to do format conversions from time to time, but I still do very much expect to have access to my
contents many many many years from now.
Since Harry brought up the issue of floppies -- couple years back I went thru my entire floppies collection and transferred any and all the data I want to preserve into hard disks and DVDs. Some of these were 5.25 inch floppies that I have had from almost 20 years ago.
So yes, while Harry may believe it is not feasible to preserve your digital
contents for a very very long time, it is actually not only VERY feasible but in fact MUCH easier to do than more tangible forms of the same contents.