Unless the vexatious problem of digital preservation is solved, all texts “born digital” belong to an endangered species. The…

“Unless the vexatious problem of digital preservation is solved, all texts “born digital” belong to an endangered species. The obsession with developing new media has inhibited efforts to preserve the old. We have lost 80 percent of all silent films and 50 percent of all films made before World War II. Nothing preserves texts better than ink imbedded in paper, especially paper manufactured before the nineteenth century, except texts written in parchment or engraved in stone. The best preservation system ever invented was the old-fashioned, pre-modern book.”

– Darnton, Robert. The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future. New York: Public Affairs, 2009. (viacarvalhais)