Independent of technology and generating curiosity – paper as an age-resistant data store medium
Authors: Schaffrath Heinz Joachim 
Published: September 2023

Abstract. Humankind is known to be curious and inquisitive. Even if the code were lost,
future individuals would be eager to find out what kind of message a printed
paper offers. This was already the case when hieroglyphs were
deciphered. Printed paper does not need additional equipment to be recognized as a data
carrier. Therefore, paper as an analogue data store medium provides an interesting
redundancy to deliver important information to future generations. The
presentation deals with topics of age resistance of paper and inks as well
as recommendations of how to empower printed or written paper to be a long-term
data store. Different ageing conditions, different inks, different printing
processes, and different fibre sources reveal the opportunities and threats.
Data obtained during a 2-year-long project together with BASE (Bundesamt für die Sicherheit der nuklearen Entsorgung – Federal Authority for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management) on
the long-term stability of paper (Langzeitbeständigkeit von Papier – Labest Papier) emphasize the feasibility (Arbeitsstandberichte AP1–AP3
(literature, typical damage, recommendations), unpublished data). The ageing mechanisms of paper are known, as are countermeasures. This leads
to standards and recommendations for the use of paper for documents. ISO 9706 (1994) is the main proponent of the direction that longevity can be ensured
solely via the composition of the paper and the initial situation at the
beginning of ageing. DIN 6738 (2007), on the other hand, takes as its basis the
approach of assessing the physical ageing of the paper based on artificial
ageing and the strength losses observed in the process. Other standards vary
the approaches somewhat or mix them in part, for which the lecture presents
a comparison table. The usability of a document depends on two essential factors. Firstly, the
residual strength after an ageing process must be high enough for the
document to be usable. Secondly, the information written on it must still be
legible or at least recognizable (ISO 11798, 2023). However, although certain fibre resources that are recommended by different
standards dealing with the long-term storage of documents as well as some fibre
sources are denied, we must consider that all fibre sources undergo an
ageing process. Different combinations of fibre and ink will lead to
different results after natural or artificial ageing. This does not
necessarily mean that only the best combination is able to fulfil the
requirements related to transport information to an address in the far
future. Albeit less strong or with higher optical changes, even by current
standards, a rejected fibre source may nevertheless be able to keep the printed
information over a long period of time. Paper has been a proven reliable information carrier for approx. 1000 years as the
oldest known paper document archived in Palermo is from 1109 CE. It is
reasonable to expect a reliability for many more years because the
“Ebers” papyrus (worldwide longest, complete, and best-preserved papyrus scroll)
stored at the University of Leipzig is already 3500 years old. Compared to
modern information storage media such as digital media or microfilm, paper
also has the advantage of a long migration time and that no reading or
decoding device is necessary. Taking this into account, paper documents are
predestined to play a major role in record, knowledge, and memory (RK&amp;M)
strategies, as described by Pescatore and Palm (2023). Finally, it remains to say that there can never be an intactness in the sense of
being completely untouched. Paper, however, is a material consisting of
natural polymers that prove their longevity in the world's oldest tree, a
9500-year-old spruce in Sweden.