I’ve picked up a new hobby of hard binding books by hand. When I’ve got enough material ready to bind on my computer, I lump it into a single file and organize it using OpenOffice. Then I save it to a pdf. After that, I use KPDF (and some print filters) to print it as several PDF files organized as the “signatures” of a book. Then when I’m ready to bind it as a book, I print out the signatures to hard copy and bind up the book. Electronic formats come and go and are still in a very high state of flux. Books have been around for centuries and will last for a few more centuries still. I find that this is the best way for me to preserve my electronic artifacts. Plus, if it is done the right way, it only costs a little for all of the materials involved–including the glue and equipment.

I really like the idea of duplicating the electronic data (as much as possible — the stuff that matters, really) in hardcopy. For example, I’ve taken my mission e-mails home and printed them as a book (I’ve done the first of two volumes), and I plan to do the same with my mission journals (so I’ll have the handwritten originals and the printed copies), and eventually with all my journals. I figure that if I have 600 books on my shelves, I certainly have room for hard copies of my journals, which are irreplaceable. Ideally one would have hard copies of everything and online/digital copies of everything, so that you’re protected against any disaster. But that’s an ideal that’s hard to achieve (let alone maintain).