Consider making prints on archival paper. Although this seems "lo-tech" making 20 prints a year for 40 years would give you 8 volumes of 100 images. That would be a nice archive, not so unweildy as to be a problem, yet also readily shared and visually inventoried.
The issue of even file-formats is problematic when it comes to digital images. One has to ask are NEF and CR2 files going to be infinitely readable? Are canon and nikon themselves going to last 40 years? And if so, provide backward compatibility? and if Not, when and where and to what quality should we trandfer the information to something more archival?
It's not clear at all. So I think this is a great question to ask, consider, and ponder solutions for.
Archival prints are great, and I agree that this seems like the best way to pas on your images after you die. However, I don't think there's going to be a problem with most RAW formats as long as computers can compile and run dcraw.
It seems like the most archival storage for images is to just write the uncompressed pixel data, width, height etc... to a file. Something like PPM, I guess.
The issue of even file-formats is problematic when it comes to digital images. One has to ask are NEF and CR2 files going to be infinitely readable? Are canon and nikon themselves going to last 40 years? And if so, provide backward compatibility? and if Not, when and where and to what quality should we trandfer the information to something more archival?
It's not clear at all. So I think this is a great question to ask, consider, and ponder solutions for.