And write the stuff on a wall and then put it in a big pyramid shaped bunker.

Their archives have lasted thousands of years and still readable!!

Mines the one with the hieroglyphs on the back.

..... but what relevance does it have, such a library of the Past, to the needs of the Future, for will not the Future need New data to Open up what we don't know?

One needs only to think of the relevance to our present existence of the generally accessible knowledge of 100 years ago [and we are learning, those who are studying that is, at an exponential rate nowadays for information is instantly available to answer our every question, even if that question and answer are blocked or spirited away, for that tells one as much as one needs to know] to realise that will be merely a quaint museum piece rather than any vital building block.

With the Past being Unchangeable except through the use of Fiction which just replaces the Facts with another Spin for another Agenda and with the Present being non-existent, because in an instant it is rendered as the Past, the only thing of any Lasting Importance is the Future, and that is built in Beta, in IT and Communications, with Beta Imagination, with some of it Real Good and far too much of it nowhere near Good at all and even positively Bad [please excuse the contradiction there] ......meaning that Life and the Reality which Media and IT Deliver to you as ITs Pictures is Imagined and Virtualised for you Enjoyment and Pleasure, Disgust and Pain.

So who you Gonna call to Change IT if you're following a limited and limiting Imagination?

The Egyptians (of the ancient , pyramid building variety) mostly used papyrus (an early precursor to modern paper, and not all that different) and ink to do their record keeping, which is why we are reduced to scrabbling around the ruins of their civilisation trying to decode the things that they wrote on the walls, which is mostly stuff like "That King Tut had a massive plonker, and a shed load of camels to boot. Oh, and he won all the wars, don't let anyone tell you different, especially those lying Assyrians, I wouldn't trust them with _your_ sacred cat, know what I mean ?"*

All we know about your basic Ancient Egyptians (if I remember primary school history lessons correctly) is that they were fond of pyramids, beer, slaves, cats, deities with novelty eraser shaped heads, and pulling peoples brains out of their noses with great big hooks.

OTOH what conclusions will be drawn by an enlightened civilisation some thousand years hence looking back at the data archives of today ? "Wow, those ancients really, really liked porn. And really long, pointless, emotionally damaging arguments. And none of them could figure out how to switch on red eye reduction on their digital cameras. Bwahahah. Losers!"

*Obviously they were somewhat more erudite than I have been in this example, which is why there's just so damn much of it.

<--- Alien, you _know_ it was them that built the pyramids really.

As anyone with an even marginal amount of sense knows the more complex a solution is the more chance there is that something will go wrong. Ethernet? Wires? Hub/Switch??? That's not even considering the fact that no machine at that point will be able to interface with it all. Good problem. Wrong answer. Each tome should have it's own display and keyboard. It should be all inclusive in a sealed box. No ports at all. All communication between tomes done wireless. I know it's redundant to have a full blown PC integrated with each tome, but if you really want to safeguard the data that seems the only logical choice. And this isn't even addressing power supply...

Mines the one with the iTome in it....

... Is amanfrommars writing articles for El Reg now...?!

Aren't the dark ages called the dark ages because there's little record of them?

From what I gather, when great civilizations collapse most of their records disappear.

Looks like we're heading for the end of another era then.

The question is, if we devoted some effort to making sure our data will survive and can always be read and understood, would that stop the collapse of civilization?

I think that for a whole heap of reasons I can't be bothered to type it would and that society would improve.

That said, I'm still planning my bunker!

How else are you gonna figure out the price of a cheese pizza and a large soda at Panucci's Pizza a hundred (or even a thousand ;) years in the future unless somebody has saved it for you?? duh

Since it's all online all the time what keeps some luser from fnording it over with...

rm -rfv /

Eh?

Isn't the constantly fluctuating mess of connected computers known as teh interweb already doing this? I mean, there's giffy girl images out there from 15 years ago, still showing up in Google Searches.

All we have to do is attach important data to porn and folks will keep it in play and active on the 'net forever.

Excellent use for stegging! Instead of hiding your porn in legit-looking documents, hide your legit data in porn!!

Someone better go out to the museums and X-ray all those ancient phalluses and nekked goddesses just in case this isn't an original idea!

They need to talk to the peeps at the Long Now Foundation--they're doing a series of projects to preserve knowledge and culture by designing mediums such as their own Rosetta Stone.

At least the huge orrey is a hoot to think about--an analogical binary clock that will keep ticking for a millenium.

Paris, because I'm hoping she gets forgetten in the next century or so...

The TOMES "power down almost completely".. with "almost" being 13W. I make that about 11,396KWh over the 100 year archive life.

On the other hand, a paper book or CD-ROM powers down to zero Watts. Add a little to copy it to a new medium once every decade.

TOMES will contribute to global warming... a book in a library is a carbon sink.

Technology longevity aside, the biggest long-term threat to archived information is deliberate destruction. We have the merest glimpse of what the ancient Mayans knew, because the conquistadores destroyed all the codices etc. they could find. What an enormous crime!

Pergamum != a settlement and library in ancient Greece. It was the capital of the Attalid kingdom in Anatolia. (i.e. modern Turkey)

I'd suspect the name was chosen because Pergamum was where parchment was invented ('Parchment' itself takes its name from Pergamum) and as a poster has mentioned already, parchment is considerably more durable - and expensive - than paper.

Paris, because she has Ph.Ds in ancient history, archeology and library studies. Doesn't she?