But then, I was raised a Catholic and I got a lot of the jokes.

Hey, Tom--

I know what you mean. I'm really really tempted to blow my whole video budget on DVDs, except I'm afraid that most of my patrons haven't made the technological jump yet. (We've made an institutional commitment to convert our video budget to 80% DVD over the next 5 years. You read it here first, and we're a backwater.) Besides, we need to replace a bunch of Barney [yuck] and I'm not sure I want to be party to immortalizing The Purple One on DVD. Imagine the bonus tracks! Barney drinking beer and talking about his kid co-stars: "Yeah, I remember Michael. What a mealy-mouthed twerp." Thomas the Tank Engine is even available on DVD, though not the ones with Ringo Starr. George Carlin only so far.

Videotape is so volatile: it can play once and be done, or be cycled 200 times. Who knows?

Also: unabridged Lord of the Rings on CD. !!!! Imagine being able to select the chapter of your choice to listen to, instead of fast-forwarding forever through 16 audiotapes. More and more audio books are making the jump to CD.

The big question is, how durable is the medium? We know its advantages over tape, but we haven't had the chance to see their durability over a period of decades. Will they fall victim to some syndrome unimagined now, the way the old films are deteriorating in their vaults? Only time will tell.

Besides that, we'll have to make sure that we keep a few machines that read the old stuff. Rosetta Stones of the future are likely to be machines rather than lexicons.

Regards--
Mary Anne