Hard copies of history

On Sunday, Burt Constable wrote about Julie Klein's history students journaling about the current COVID-19 crisis, thus creating primary source materials for future historians to use. I understand that other teachers are doing the same.

As a former history teacher for many years, I commend these activities. However, I urge Ms. Klein and any other teachers whose students are looking to capture these moments to strongly urge/require that what the students are doing be done not only electronically but also with hard copies of their work. Many young people have no idea what a floppy disk is/was, for example, and who knows if things stored in the cloud will be accessible or readable in 50 years?

A small group of us at church are looking to update some history of the congregation starting in the late 1970s, and we are grateful we have archives of minutes, annual reports, etc. from which to work.

Dan Jares

Bloomingdale