Trevor- There has been some research done on this but much of it is related to smaller format documents than some of which you are speaking about. This is a link to research done by one 3rd party that HP, Kodak, Epson and others have worked with http://goo.gl/jQKbW to validate their products. And although this is quite dated (1987) this is research done by UNESCO on both ink and paper for long-term options http://goo.gl/UFI1U Dating back as far as 2005, the printing industry was calling on ISO to develop Standards on this issue, http://goo.gl/Gu6r2 but I have yet to see anything coming out. If there is going to be anything done, it will likely come out of ISO TC42 http://goo.gl/40o8q Work Group 5 is doing some work on photographic print images, but I'm not seeing much on mapping/plats/land images. The National Archives of Australia and others have dome work on preservation of microforms http://goo.gl/sS29z and much research has been done into the use of PDF as a stable format for electronic content. but with many drawings, the issue is the size and scale of the source documents you start with. Even the process of direct imaging, which many times uses a drum-type scanner can result in loss of stability of scale. Flat bed scanners for anything larger than 30" x 42" are becoming rather rare. Larry [log in to unmask] List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message. mailto:[log in to unmask]