How long do documents really last?

In one of the books I’m reading, From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods [amazon], I ran across this, on page 38:

… [T]here are basic technical reasons why an archive does not last, namely the quality of the material on which the record is kept. The ink used today, which is based on aniline, becomes virtually unreadable after about thirty years - and the ink from a typical ballpoint pen becomes unreadable after a few hours in the sun! Today, the original documents produced in the Nuremberg trials of 1945 are almost undecipherable. The quality of the paper used has as great an effect on the durability of documents. Paper manufactured before about 1840, being made of textiles (”rag”) and of glues derived from the bones of animals, was long-lasting. Most of the paper made during the next century was not, for the pine resin used as glue destroys its cellulose fibers (the paper being a wood product). While deacidification processes have since been developed and are being gradually applied to the most precious surviving records, and while much of the paper produced since 1945 is not similarly vulnerable, a huge proportion of the documents stored in libraries and archives today is threatened with extinction simply because the paper is rotting. We might as well ask ourselves just how durable are the photocopies of our present-day letters - often the only version that is saved - and the faxes on which we are so dependent. Wallpaintings in caves - some of them of inestimable historical and artistic value - become very vulnerable once they are discovered, for the light that enters the cave, once it is opened, allows the growth of organisms that consume the paintings.

I thought this was a fascinating bit of information. While I’ve been aware of the fact that books and other written materials decay, I certainly didn’t know how fast that decay can be. 30 years! To think that something I write today might be totally illegible when I’m 52. Of course, in regards to the ink, I’m not entirely sure what falls under “based on aniline.” Printer ink, for inkjet printers? Gel inks, like in the Pilot G2s? (I love these things, by the way.) All of the ink used in your standard ballpoint pen? It isn’t very clear.

On the other hand, however, the writers of the book nay be exaggerating a bit. While searching for information on ink decay, I searched for “nuremberg documents.” I came up with this: the Nuremberg Trials Project, a project under Harvard Law School’s wing. While they’re far from being done with the scanning of the documents, you can already look at pages upon pages of documents from the trial. The ink has certainly faded, and the paper is clearly suffering from some bad coloration, but it’s not unreadable. Even this page, which is more far gone than the others, is readable, at least with a bit of effort. However, it’s of course possible that many of the other documents in the giant collection are unreadable, at least without the aid of special instruments. I saw on the project site that all of the documents will be available in either scanned form or full-text form. Perhaps they’ll be providing full-text versions of the ones that are just too far gone to read via a scanned page. Regardless of the way that the documents are shared in, it’ll be a great resource for law students, as well as folks interested in the Nuremberg trials. (It will also be a gigantic task for Harvard to finish; the site says they have approximately one million pages of documents!)

Whether or not the Nuremberg documents are all unreadable at this point though, it’s clear that they’re well on their way to reaching that point. Reading that small bit of text up above made me think a lot about all of the “stuff” that the world has that’s still in paper form; all of the stuff that is ultimately not “permanent”, even if we view it that way now, in our day to day lives. From letters written between politicians or lovers, to books that are no longer printed, to the quaint menu at the restaurant down on the corner, even if this stuff is packed away in a sealed vault, without the correct treatment, it isn’t going to last. While I know from Buddhism that nothing is permanent, it’s still a real bummer to think about the fact that books that are on my shelves right now might be totally rotted away 30 or 40 years down the road. It’s just not something you think about that often, or at least, not something that I’ve thought about often. I’ve always fooled myself into thinking that if I was careful with my books or other printed materials, they’d last a lifetime. Maybe I was wrong.

So, what’s the answer to the question: how long do documents - faxes, books, newspapers - really last? Well, the best I can do is this: it depends. It depends on the type of ink, the type of paper, how it’s treated and stored. However, the one thing I can tell you is this: it won’t last forever. Not only will it not last forever, but it might not even last long enough for your kids to see it.

If I’ve whetted your appetite for paper and ink history, fear not: I can hook you up with some more information. On the paper front, here’s a brief history of paper. There is, as usual, a pretty good Wikipedia article on the topic as well. For ink, you can start with Forty Centuries of Ink, or “Think ink!” from the Christian Science Monitor.