Digital or Print?

Today, there are various vehicles for both disseminating and preserving text, art, and music. With the internet and the abundance of sharing platforms, the contemporary modes of textual transmission surpass more traditional modes such as print in their ability to reach a wide range of people for little to no physical labor or financial cost. But these logistical benefits of digital transmission do not encompass the full and complex range of considerations that must be made in deciding which format will best preserve the text, while ensuring that it is seen, understood, and experienced by as many people as possible. As such, it is important that the advantages and disadvantages of both modes of transmission are outlined and analyzed to decipher which will best benefit the longevity of this text. 

Dissemination 

When deciding how to best disseminate the text, the logistics of finances is incredibly important. Disseminating the text through print incurs a great financial burden, since many copies must be printed in order to attain enough to give to a large amount of people, which is necessary to maximize the amount of visibility the paper gets. Similarly, there are many physical limitations to disseminating printed copies of the text, since it requires a lot of time and energy to hand out copies and to travel to a location where it can be best received. In contrast, there is no price to send an email or to attach a digital file of the text to a forum or social media platform, making a digital mode of transmission infinitely easier logistically. Because of the lack of financial or time restraints that come with digital transmission, there are far fewer limitations on how many copies can be sent, which may increase the likelihood that more people will read the text. 

In comparison to its digital counterpart, a physically distributed text may have lower odds of reaching people because offline, the only people who can be reached are those in my physical proximity. This presents a logistical challenge because it is challenging to find a population of people who would be receptive towards taking and learning about an old paper with little contemporary relevance. Most people in the public have little interest or knowledge of the topic covered in the science paper, which is very niche, which makes it very possible that most people would either decline to take or trash the paper soon after receiving it. Online, however, there is a much broader population that can be reached via pathways that are more public (like social media) or more personal (like email), making it likely that I can reach more people who are actually interested in the work. Further, it is much easier for someone to share a digital file than it is for someone to share a physical copy of the paper. It is infinitely easier to attach a data file to a message than it is for someone to photocopy or take a picture of a paper and send it to someone else, so it is more likely for the piece to proliferate online than in person. 

Additionally, I can transmit the digital file pointedly towards particular online science communities and forums that will actually understand and appreciate the work; it is far more likely that someone on a microbiology forum will take time to read and potentially share the text than a person who is given a copy on the street outside the scientific context. Additionally when using email or other platforms to disseminate the digital text, I can send a message along with it that explains why it is important. This may motivate people to actually read the text. Conversely, though, when sending a text file, someone may not understand how important the text is to me personally, since it is so easy to send things digitally these days. It is much more obvious for others to see the significance of the text if I go through the effort of printing copies and handing them out. This may influence the receptiveness towards reading the paper and understanding the significance.

Despite the numerous advantages, there are many drawbacks to using a digital mode of transmission. Since people get so many files a day, it is less likely that people will take the time to read the text, let alone open the file. However, if a physical copy is handed to someone, they are more likely to read or at least glance at it. Additionally, this is not a “fancy” or modern paper, and there is little contemporary relevance. As such, people will not be inclined to look it up or select it digitally when there are so many more interesting options available at the click of a mouse. But if a paper is physically disseminated, people will see or at least perceive its importance because it is resurfacing in the modern era. This may encourage people to pay more attention to the piece. Additionally, a physical copy is more likely to be referred to or seen after being received than a file that would stay in the back of someone’s computer. 

Preserveration 

Much of preservation is based on choosing a format that people are less inclined to discard. This benefits digital files because digital files take up no space, so people may be less inclined to delete a file as compared to a physical copy that is visibly cluttering their bag or their office. However, this isn’t necessarily a productive form of preservation, because a dormant file cannot be disseminated nor can it be shared. More productively, a digitized version of the text is more likely to be found online by scientists and thus proliferated within the scientific community. This would allow it to be cited and appear in another scientific journal, which would allow for its further re emergence in the microbiology community. Finally, when a digital file is sent out into the internet it can exist forever, whereas our physical possessions will ultimately cease to exist at some point. However, in favor of a physical copy, people for whom the paper is significant may be more likely to preserve a physical copy than a digital one, since files can be mistaken or misnamed and accidentally deleted or lost.