This is such a trivial problem to solve. In fact, libraries are really good for distributed storage so have a peer to peer replica all over the world.
Libraries are trustworthy and stable so good spots to distribute 100 durable replicas of the catalog data.
If you’re worried about surviving Armageddon or something then that’s a different problem. Not that the books will likely be around, but I suppose you could dump the data out to records or something and bury it under the library and that’s more likely to survive whatever takes out the library.
But I think a digital copy of the catalog distributed around the world and into space is more likely to survive.
That might be a fun project, to broadcast the data out into space at something that will reflect it back in 10-100 years so we’ll have a copy coming back to us in the future. Is that possible, astronomically?
Firstly, backups are not an emergency plan. Restoring backups is the emergency plan, and that needs to be tested and verified on a regular basis. Making backups without validated restoration is just theatre,
Second, a backup is not a failsafe. A failsafe is something that lets you keep working in the event of a failure. It's not something that lets you keep working after you recover. If a self-driving car had the failsafe of stopping dead in the middle of the railway tracks until you restore it from backup you're going to have a lot of damaged trains.
No amount of computer database backup will help you when the power goes out. Fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, they happen and power can go out for weeks (in the first world) or longer (in most of the world). With today's connected world, all it takes is for a network switch to go out and hundreds of thousands of commuters get stuck in the downtown during rush hour because the commuter trains have no failsafe while freight trains keep trundling on the same tracks because they do [0].
Making backups is not a failsafe and it's not good enough.
This is such a trivial problem to solve. In fact, libraries are really good for distributed storage so have a peer to peer replica all over the world.
Libraries are trustworthy and stable so good spots to distribute 100 durable replicas of the catalog data.
If you’re worried about surviving Armageddon or something then that’s a different problem. Not that the books will likely be around, but I suppose you could dump the data out to records or something and bury it under the library and that’s more likely to survive whatever takes out the library.
But I think a digital copy of the catalog distributed around the world and into space is more likely to survive.
That might be a fun project, to broadcast the data out into space at something that will reflect it back in 10-100 years so we’ll have a copy coming back to us in the future. Is that possible, astronomically?