Comment by thaumasiotes

> The best option for long term archive is probably still characters printed out on paper, but getting that back into a working system can be quite a bit harder

Here it definitely depends on what your goals are. The best records we have from the past, in terms of their ability to survive, are fired clay tablets. Paper records really only survive in very dry environments. (Special documents, notably peace treaties, could be inscribed on metal. But the metal used was generally silver, for its value, which isn't ideal for archival purposes.)

With more modern technology, we can do thinner stainless steel plaques, which solve the problems of tablet thickness and metal rusting. They would also be more difficult to shatter than fired ceramics. Such an archive would survive far, far better than a collection of paper. It would be more expensive, and bulkier.