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Re: DRAFT recommendations v1.2

Dear all,

in the discussion of paperless versions of International tables, please
never forget the extremely important recommenadtion 1(d): we also need a
very long-term SECURE and TECHNOLGY-INDEPENDENT medium.

Information stored electronically is very, very volatile. It can be kept
only with constant, uninterrupted attendance and it always requires a
machine to be read. Did you know that nearly all data of the first NASA
Mars mission have been lost? They were stored on magentic tapes; even if
there still would exist machines to read the tapes, this would not help,
because the tapes have deteriorated.

Electronic information is fine and useful, but experience shows that
paper (distributed to many places in the world) has been and will
continue to be the most reliable and machine-independent storage medium.
Therefore: Important material must always be printed on paper,
independent of any other additional means of distribution.

Kind regards,

Ulrich M�ller
Fachbereich Chemie
Philipps-Universit�t 
D-35032 Marburg
[email protected]