[ivankolev]

A little on a tangent, but I've been thinking that it might be valuable to keep this offline knowledge infra around for backup, afaik properly stored book has lifespan that is still an order of magnitute longer than any digital storage.

[ghaff]

It's a complicated question.

On the one hand, barring natural disaster/fire/water leaks/etc., your library book will last a good long time--at least until the library gets rid of it because they need the space and no one's checked it out recently. On the other hand, even with inter-library loan, it's not super-accessible especially if it's in, say, a private university library. And if something does happen to it, it's gone.

On the other hand, a single digital copy won't last as long. But subject to a lot of factors and caveats, copies of that digital artifact can last indefinitely.

[ivankolev]

Yes, trade-offs all the way down :) Physical damage of the nature you described affects many forms of digital storage too, though I doubt vermins will find them very palatable. And there could be many copies of a book, to your second point. There is also the question of the specialized equipment needed to read the digital media. As I said, trade offs. I try to maintain a personal book library just because I was an avid reader growing up, in the pre-internet days, and I don't want to see the future generations go pure digital, but maybe it is inevitable.