Brings back many memories. No mention of her 'retirement' or justification of same.
I did much archiving in the late 90's and I know how time-consuming it can be. I lost a good deal of my archiving of FR due to a hard drive crash, and I don't know what happened to the CD backup, the media surface just 'dissolved'. It was a Memorex disc, which is probably all the answer I need. 😒
The digital age produces enormous amounts of information that need to constantly transferred to newer media. I have a pile of zip discs and no zip player and no computer with software to read them. I have diskettes with system and file backups. Is it worth my finding an disk player and a archived system that has software to read them? Do I have anything on there worth saving? Maybe some pictures, but at this point I am not going to pursue them and they are lost. ("Πάντα ῥεῖ" everything flows).
If something is really important, material printed on acid free paper does last, if you can keep insects away. (Think linen or papyrus paper in St Catherine's monastery.) Fired Sumerian clay tablets last! (Yes, he sold 15 sheep for a tun of olive oil and 1 amphora of new wine!)
I suppose if something is really (Really!) important get acid free paper and long lasting ink and print it out. I think that the Library of Congress requires, or possibly recommends that the first print copy of a new book supplied to them be printed on Linen to avoid it disintegrating over time like wood pulp paper.
Color on photographs can fade with time. (Mine have...) make certain you take some black and white family pictures. They will last longer.
Oh well. Time to downsize coming up, when my possesions will join the great river of used and discarded things. Home today. Off to do some errands now.