I was recently re-reading
Legion of Super-Heroes: Millenium, written by Brian Michael Bendis. The first part of the book is the story of Rose Forest (aka Rose & Thorn) who traveled from the 21st Century to the 31st Century the hard way...by living through it (something occurred in the present that made her unaging and apparently immortal). We get to see her live through various eras in DC History.
One of the things that struck me, and the reason for this thread, is that she mentions (paraphrased and summarized from the text):
- She's starting another private journal.
- It's her fourth or fifth attempt.
- She keeps losing them to due advances in technology, with her first journal being stored on a ZIP Drive.
- That this is a very old person's problem.
This got me to wondering how much of our personal documents will still be accessible in the future. For myself, I've got some documents stored on 5.25 inch floppy discs, and others on 3.5 inch floppy discs (with some on disc non-standard formatted for a Brother Word Processor), that I doubt I would be able to access now, with many stored in formats for word processors that are no longer in common use.
Although major works will likely be retained for the foreseeable future via translation from one electronic format to another, I doubt this will be the case with many personal documents. Due to this, I'm thinking that ink and paper might be the only option to retain access to our personal documents regardless of advances in technology.
Consider that technology in use within the last few decades (including, as Rose Forrest mentioned, ZIP Discs) have already been rendered obsolete and its data difficult, if not impossible, to access. However, documents (including personal letters) handwritten/printed in ink on paper are still readable 100s of years later.
This led me to wonder if ink and paper might be the best way to preserve our personal documents. What are your thoughts?