Making paper waterproof--and writable

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Great for Libraries!

Speaking as a former librarian, this article made me dance for joy. One of the biggest problems in librarianshiop today is preservation. A book printed in the 1800's will be in better shape than a book printed in 1950. That's because the papers being used in publishing nowdays deteriorate --very-- fast.

Another problem is what happens to library books when there's a flood or when a water main breaks? There are companies that specialize in helping libraries recover from disasters like these, but they're expensive and sometimes the damage is just too extensive.

You'll sometimes see notices on special editions that it's been printed on acid-free paper. This is paper that will (hopefully) last longer than yesterday's newspaper. Combine that with this new technology, and you might actually have a library where the contents won't dissolve before your grandkids have a chance to read them.

(And let's not hear any cr*p about "digital storage". Digital storage means you need digital devices to recover the data. I'm not about to bring a fancy toy to the beach just to read the latest best-seller. CD-ROMs and DVDs haven't been around long enough to give a really good idea of how long the data will remain uncorrupted on them -- are we talking decades, or hundreds of years -- and the tests I've read about don't hold up much hope for them as a long-term data storage mechanism. Also, if you damage the storage medium for digital storage, it's hard to recover any of the data; whereas if you damage the storage medium with a book, it's much easier to recover more of the data in a usable form. Unless some idiot's ripped out the last page of a murder mystery. I hate people who do that.)

Posted by: carrollj@...   Posted on: 08/10/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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