Comment by bell-cot
1 day ago
Guess: If properly stored (physically), good-quality paper documents and photographs will last for centuries. But as soon as you digitize them - you're now chained to the treadmill of maintaining/upgrading/migrating digital archiving systems. Compared to keeping the old-fashioned Archive Storage Room dry (and fire-free), that's 100X the labor and expense. Forever.
A lot of paper archives and libraries burned just recently in LA.
True.
But from fire-resistant storage cabinets, to concrete-lined file rooms, to underground archives, the tech to make archives ~99.5% fire-proof is more than a century old. And if you add redundant storage sites for the high-value stuff...
Vs. anything digital is far more vulnerable to digital malice.