Like many other archives, the small island nation of Niue preserved their records on paper. Unfortunately, a category 5 cyclone devastated Niue, 1500 miles northeast of New Zealand, in 2004. The cyclone destroyed almost all the paper records. The island's museum, the repository of almost all Niue records, was a total loss. You can see what was left of the museum in the image below.
Luckily, FamilySearch, the family history organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had earlier microfilmed most of the records and had preserved those films in the granite mountain near Salt Lake City. These government records were copied to new microfilms and restored to Niue to help with claims related to property and inheritance.
As proven in Niue, paper-based records are not dependable for long-term storage. Neither is any other single form of preservation. The only solution is to keep multiple copies on multiple forms of media, and to store them in multiple locations. Thanks to such a multi-discipline storage methodology, the island nation of Niue has its records today.
You can learn more by clicking in the image below or by going to http://www.youtube.com/embed/kHgh5D76EjU
