Out with the old and in with the new. It’s a well-recognized phrase that paves the way for change, allowing businesses the opportunity to evolve with the times. The printing industry is not impervious to such things, and while it has struggled over the years, many still feel that the physical material of books, magazines and other documents still has purpose in the digital age.

Advertising and direct-marketing campaigns, in particular, are still seeing success with printed images. With the extra addition of laminating equipment, posters and pictures can be given a professional appearance and the necessary means to withstand the elements of being hung up outdoors or sent through the mail.

Additionally, Justin Hollander wrote a recent contribution in The New York Times op-ed section, detailing reasons why paper is still a necessary aspect to the nation’s educational systems as well as the overall culture.

According to Hollander, the recent proposal by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in which he told the National Press Club that textbooks would soon be entirely replaced by digital-learning technologies.

“But Secretary Duncan is threatening to light a bonfire to a tried-and-true technology – good old paper – that has been the foundation for one of the great educational systems on the planet,” Hollander wrote. “And while e-readers and multimedia may seem appealing, the idea of replacing an effective learning platform with a widely hyped but still unproven one is extremely dangerous.”

Hollander added that paper has the strength and durability that could last thousands of years. It’s a somewhat terrifying concept, he said, that cherished knowledge and information is being preserved on discs that could become unreadable or stored in “the cloud” where it could become lost in the digital mainframe.

Paper can be strong and durable in comparison to new technologies and that fact will be further underlined when companies – or educational institutions – invest in equipment that offers more protection, such as wide-format or pouch laminators. This way, businesses can rest assured that important documents can be preserved and withstand the test of time.