I have a whole set of ebooks I picked up at a less than reputable site in '11. They're all in pristine condition, all perfectly readable. I have books on my Kindle that are older than that (though not by a lot).
My 5 year old copy of "Edge of Tomorrow" (The LN "All You Need Is Kill" movie tie-in release) is yellowed and the binding is coming loose due to re-reading. The ebook manga I got at the same time is also in pristine condition, and will remain so when the book is long gone.
Ultimately, it's a trade off. Assuming that you have a DRM free digital copy of something and that you're remarkably careful about keeping back ups and multi-site/format copies a digital file could easily last 100 years, just like a well cared for paperback could last a hundred years. At that point, the difference between them is how easy it will be to read the contents. For the digital copy you will need a certain type hardware and software which may or may not exist or be easy to obtain in 100 years, but you need nothing at all for the paperback.
I like books, so I think the best bet is both the physical copy and multiple digital copies in various formats. It's not as if we have to chose one or the other, so it's okay that both options come with different strengths and weaknesses.
There's plenty to worry about with maintenance of both formats, but for paper most of the investment is upfront. For digital it is an ongoing investment, with the benefit of a pristine copy being maintained.
But even a book from the 90s is 20-30 years old at this point. I'm not sure if that fits colloquially with a claim that they fall apart in "months to years". I've never had a paperback book I've purchased fall apart within 5 years (hell, I can't think of a time one fell apart within 10 years with the exception of severe water damage).
I just...have never seen a book fall apart in months.
I have. I had one fall apart on my first read through it. Pages just dropping out of it.
I also recall, as a teenager some years ago, buying a hardcover book from a store in the airport, and realizing that the last 20 pages were the previous 20 pages pasted in again.
Ultimately, the books I cared about re-reading, I've replaced with ebooks. Because aside from the convenience, I don't have to worry about the book's condition, deterioration, mold, et.al.
Although that was notoriously bound poorly.
I've had the binding snap on mass market paperbacks when I opened it the first time. Not exactly a shining beacon of quality.
The oldest hardback in my library is right around 300 years old and beyond a bit of foxing in quite good condition.
The 1898 Report of the Librarian of Congress has an appendix titled "The Durability of Paper" addressing just this concern:
<https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015036735036&vi...>
No problems with small books of reasonable lengths. At some point the number of pages in the popular books exceeded the durability of the cheap binding tech in use.
How often have you read them? Many of my most beloved cheap paperbacks from the 80s and 90s have been replaced at least once since they've literally fallen apart as I was reading them. Also my books from the 50s and 60s seem to be of higher quality than books from the 80s and 90s (or that could also just be survivor bias).
I'm not saying that your scenario can't happen. I am saying that I would be surprised if all but the most carefully maintained digital library would outlive the cheapest of print books. Keep in mind that, at a bare minimum, a digital library must be backed up and transferred to new media every few years. You may get away with storing digital for a decade untended, but two decades is a bit of a stretch. Also keep in mind that even the slightest amount of bit rot can make an entire book unreadable. While this isn't really true of books stored as plain text, most modern formats seem to used some sort of compressed container (e.g. ePubs are compressed).
I own tons from the 80s, all are in perfect condition. Also a few dozen from the 70s and they're all fine.
I also have a few books from the 1800s, those are hardcovers not paperbacks but also in reasonably good shape.
Keep in mind that bindings often last a lot less than that: One of the reasons genuinely old leatherbound books have those horizontal ridges on the spines is that they cover the (often also leather) laces used to re-bind the book and hold the pages together. This gave the classic works a certain look that was later replicated by publishers as just decorative ridges on the spine - but the origin of the feature was that those leather ridges were functional (they also acted as wear bumpers, but this was a secondary bonus) and a key part of the rebound book's structure!
I'll add one more big item to the anti-electronic book column: It is simply impossible to build electronics that last for decades with lead-free solder. Leaded PCBs will still eventually have tin whisker problems, but the new "green/RoHS" lead-free PCBs always stop working much sooner than leaded ones. Worse yet, no one cares because obsolescence design cycles are single-digit years now. Prior to lead-free electronic controls, appliances lasted many decades: Almost all of my major appliances are over 30 years old now, and some have never been repaired at all! They're a little less efficient, but much cheaper over the long haul, as I'm not replacing them every few years - that makes them arguably better for the environment, too, as there's no waste filling the dump, either...
Real books last centuries. E-books can't. We're a long way from Andromeda's "flexies"...
If the pages don't literally crumble to dust, they fall from the binding, especially when actually read.
There are some formats which survive better, but many books will in fact deteriorate beyond readability within 50 years or so.
The math book I'm reading right now it's from the 70's.
You might care to temper it with a balance of rigour in verifying your own beliefs and anecdotal experiences, your haste to dismiss that of others, and as in assessing your own methodology and its potential weaknesses.
I could perhaps have been more clear to indicate that use of acidic, pulp-based paper is more common in paperback publications, rather than universal. The point remains that as a cheaper publication mode, that cheaper publication processes and materials are more prevalent. I have encountered issues with pulp-based decay in both paperback and hardcopy books.
I'd linked an 1898 reference to issues with high-pulp, acidic paper degradation in an earlier comment (also submitted as an HN item). It begins:
The Library of Congress is indebted to the American ambassador at Berlin, the Hon Andrew D. White, for the following copy of the regulations adopted by the Prussian Government for the security of the national archives, and teh special danger involved in printing or writing records on paper made of wood pulp.
Wood pulp is extensively used in the manufacture of modern paper.
Paper made from compositions containing wood pulp decays more or less rapidly in proportion to the amount of wood pulp used.
Such paper is unfit for official use where permanency of records is essential or important.
<https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015036735036&vi...>
The specific issue is somewhat less the wood pulp than acidic materials used in its preparation and their interaction with the pulp. Wikipedia has a good article on the matter:
Paper degradation is a slow process, but it is significantly accelerated in an acidic environment. In the mid-nineteenth century, the method of paper production became popular, in which resin-alum glue was added to the paper pulp.[3] The aluminum sulphate remaining in the paper form, in reaction with water, acids that catalyze the decomposition of cellulose (acidic hydrolysis). In this process, the cellulose chains are shortened, which reduces the tear resistance of the paper, and at the same time increases the cross-linking of their structure that causes the paper to stiffen and become brittle.[4] Parallel to the degradation under the influence of water, the cellulose chains react with oxygen, in result of oxidation the chains are also shortened.[5] Not only cellulose, but also the lignin contained in the paper is oxidized, which leads to the yellowing of the paper.
... The process of self-degradation of paper causes exceptional difficulties in safeguarding the collections of archives and libraries. For example, an analysis of the book collections of the Jagiellonian Library, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Książnica Cieszyńska, the AGH University of Science and Technology and the Cracow University of Technology proved that as much as 90% of the resources published by the mid-1990s (to be precise in 1996 in Poland) have all the features of acidic paper.[7] It turned out that these institutions, established to care for the heritage of the past, are not able to effectively carry out their mission.[8]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acidic_paper>
As to books published in the 1970s and 1980s, I have, or have had, numerous instances of these in my own personal library, purchased new, which are in the process of or have entirely degraded beyond usability, the latter having been discarded.
Those Spanish examples you've encountered might be a useful foil on which to consider a further concept (and common methodological / sampling error): survivorship bias:
No ebooks can last more than a decade or two, and even if the files are perfectly readable, you often need a LOT of supporting hardware and software to use them.
Take even a very simple example like a Kindle in 15-20 years time: The LiPoly battery will fail, it may not be able to phone home to validate your DRM anymore, for many reasons: Amazon my have updated the APIs to a form unusable by your old device, your account may no longer exist, the wireless network standards may no longer be compatible or in use (original Kindles already suffer from this!), the charger may be long-gone (or you can no longer find a type-A USB port to plug the charging cable into), the lead-free solder will have developed tin whiskers and shorted out PCB connections, the grid may have collapsed due to the instability of renewable energy or a Carrington event, and in my experience, the microUSB charging connector on the Kindle itself will most certainly have broken, anyway, as they always do (and I'm NOT hard on my devices...) Exactly NONE of those issues will ever prevent a book from providing you access to the information it had from the day of its printing.
Thanks, I'll take paper. *ALL* digital data/info storage is ephemeral. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves.
(And BTW, history shows that the fall of civilizations (and their support structures, of course) does happen with alarming frequency. For the last few thousand years, books( (or close cousins like scrolls, etc.) have proven to be as resistant to that sort of thing as possible.)
Actually, several arguments I didn't make.
I use 'cheesy romance novel' as the benchmark, as they were notoriously poorly bound with cheap materials to reduce cost per unit to the extreme.
Yes, a human could read the broken pages pretty easily with effort, but one of the niceties about the book format is that it reduces the user burden to such a degree as to allow them to become entrenched in the material rather than the physical good.
>> go buy a cheesy romance novel from the 70s at any local thrift store
Okay, but a "cheesy romance novel from the 70s" is 50 years old at this point. That's...a very generous interpretation of "will wear out in months or years". I suppose it's true that "500 months" is technically months, but...that's not how that phrase is typically used.
Hopefully some will fight the good fight to keep at least desktops with ports long enough in order to allow for a personal NAS and IPFS to keep our docs accessible.
While digital books are also stored on media that can be lost, stolen, etc., the magic comes from storing multiple copies in different places.
I still have a comic book compilation (hard cover) from the 70's right here. The condition it's perfect for its age.