I must admit I don't share your confidence in modern book making methods. I've had books fall apart after a couple of months, so I don't see 50 years happening.
Its the same with CD & DVD...we are promised many years of safe storage but in practice they fail soon.
For my digital media I'm paranoid - I have a mirrored NAS, rsynced to a third drive, copies on my laptop, and two offsite backups of most of my media, and I'm still concerned about how easy it is to lose it.
Especially as most of my early writing (of little value to anyone but me, but of great sentimental value) only survives on printouts - even faded acidic printer paper from the early 80's to early 90's have long outlasted the storage media holding the files it was saved on. Not because disks can't live long, but because the density and relative fragility makes it so much easier to lose or damage the data.
Exactly. They were made 25 years ago. I'm talking about books being printed right now. Quality is not what it once was.
A sewn cloth binding, archival-grade acid-free paper, and good inks will last centuries.
Pulp paperbacks may fall apart after a single reading, though I've got a few I've had for 20+ years and multiple readings, though a few of those have a fair bit of packaging tape on them.
Several of my college textbooks fell apart distressingly fast, and I've got a number of softcover books whose pages are getting unglued (varying vintages). Different cover materials can also have different longevities: a few composite / plastic covered books have had the covers crack off or break.
CD's and DVD's are another matter unfortuntaly... I am now basically operating under the assumption that any CD or DVD will be unreadable after a few years.
If I'm not mistaken then libraries buy a higher grade of books designed to endure much more. I've seen it on Amazon. i.e. a book comes in ebook, paperback, hardback & then another category - the name of it currently eludes me though.
I agree on the re-binding though.