The Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) will digitise more than 40 million patient records stored on almost obsolete microfiche archive equipment between 1975 and 1984 before the government’s Medicare scheme was introduced.
The space required to store paper documents can be a problem. Digitizing your documents renders them exquisitely portable--you can store an entire library on your e-book reader with ease. And because paper documents can be turned into editable computer documents, they become searchable. Compare typing "Roosevelt" in a search field with spending all day scanning microfiche and old newspapers by eye to research the Square Deal or the New Deal. The digital document is a boon to researchers the world over.