Originally posted by alohadave 
Are you advocating film for archival purposes or because you think it makes better 'art'? Your last two sentences don't really have anything to do with archiving or history.
Film is not inherently better than digital for archives. You can destroy film just as easily as digital. If you really want archives, you'll print out the pictures on high quality paper and store them properly in a humidity and temperature controlled environment.
Most pictures printed today (film or digital) won't last because they are cheaply made, not because they are color or B&W or film or digital.
Film is, in fact, inherently better than digital as an archiving medium.
Film will, as long as it is not physically damaged and was properly processed in the first place, last for many, many decades, though there have been notable exceptions to this.
The Agfa debacle of the 70s, the problems with the original Ektachrome films and dark fading, the very short lifespan of Kodak's T-Max CN film or the huge light fading problems associated with Kodachrome come to mind.
However, CD's become unreadable, hard drives fail, and files corrupt. Digital requires a tremendous amount of input from the owner to maintain any sort of archivability, multiple copies spread over multiple storage media is required if one wants digital files to last.
Compare this to the benign neglect of a box of negatives under the bed, with the film still usable many decades after processing.
Similar Threads 
