Humans have always tried to visualize their ideas, beliefs, fantasies and other mental products. Therefore they developed the image and the written word. In the beginning the records were for temporary use only, but soon they realized that part of the records remained valuable for longer periods. Later they made on purpose records for longer use and even for eternity.

To make this possible a whole array of writing and painting materials was developed.. All writing and painting was done by hand. For thousands of years traditional materials as stone, clay-tablets, papyrus, parchment and paper were the only ones available. Printing became available in the 15th century, but only since the mid 19th century completely new methods of recording became available. Although paper is still very important to us, other media for recording image, written word and even sound are becoming more and more indispensable in everyday life.

These new media involve an ever increasing array of new technologies, based on chemical, magnetic and optic processes. They are mostly incompatible with each other. They mostly have their own outlook, their own format and more and more they relay on own hardware and software. A lot of them can not be viewed or listened to without an appropriate device and their evolution is such, that more powerfull and sophisticated hardware and software are required in a increasingly shorter time span, resulting in obsoleteness of former formats in the blink of an eye.

Where libraries and archives were, up to 25 years ago, mainly based on paper materials with an occasionally photographic collection and for libraries a sound record collection, the explosion of recording media have altered their outlook for ever. Libraries are turning out to become real multimedia centers, with all possible formats available, the last one being an electronic link to the Internet. Archives are increasingly acquiring vast quantities of information on new media. Future evolutions are expecting a diminishing paper input in favor of digital records.

For archives, who more than libraries, are expected to make available their records to people until eternity, problems are growing big. Not only has the information to be dissiminated, the original records are supposed to be kept in their original formats. No one at this stage knows if this will be possible. Things are moving to fast. We still do not know how long new supports will survive and how long the information they contain will stay available.

Knowledge of materials and preservation become more and more important in managing these collections which will always be indispensable to human evolution, knowledge and creativity.