Interesting discussion.  By the way, the US Navy is so proud of itself that
it is embracing digital technology as, you guessed it, an archiving medium...


  Disclaimers:  A.  Only applies to the "operators", i.e. technical
documentation, not (as far as I know) historical documents.  BUT, the
battleships, for instance, were around a lot longer than the touted 35 year
storage life of a CD-ROM...
                       B.  I'm a recently retired Naval line officer who had
a hand in this ill-advised decision, so I'm allowed to throw rocks  :)

                       Regards,

                                  Mark Bacin, Ventura County Maritime Museum