But why should things be saved? Everything is deeply intertwingled. We save for knowledge and nostalgia, but what we thought was knowledge often turns to nostalgia, and nostalgia often brings us deeper insights that cut across our lives and very selves. Ted Nelson, Computer Lib/Dream Machines, The Heritage

Computers offer an interesting daydream: that we may be able to store things digitally instead of physically. In other words, turn the libraries to digital storage (see Hypertexts); digitize paintings and photographs (see "Picture Processing);even digitize the genetic codes of animals, so that species can be restored at future dates (see "The Hitiest Computer,"). Digital storage possesses several special advantages. Digitally stored materials may be copied by automatic meanB; corrective measures are possible, to prevent errors from creeping In— i.e., "no deterioration" In principle; and they could be kept in various places, lessening man- kind's dependence on its eggs being all in one basket (like the Library at Alexandria, whose burning during the occupation of Julius Caesar was one of the greatest losses in human history). But this would of course require far more compact and reliable forms of digital storage than exist right now. Nevertheless, we better start thinking about it. Ted Nelson, Computer Lib/Dream Machines, The Heritage

Paper moulders. Microfilm is inconvenient. In the best libraries it takes at least minutes to get a particular thing. But as to linking them together - footnoting Aeschylus with Marcus Aurelius, linking genetic data to 15th-century accounts of Indian tribes - well, you can only do it on paper by writing something new that ties them together. Isn't that ridiculous? When you could do it all electronically in seconds? Ted Nelson, Computer Lib/Dream Machines, Hypertext