I think QR codes are actually great for this (so long as you are storing basic data like plain text that is likely to be recoverable for a long time). It has bu

I think QR codes are actually great for this (so long as you are storing basic data like plain text that is likely to be recoverable for a long time). It has built in error correction and software for reading them is extremely widespread. However, more than just error correction, we should really try to make formats that are resilient to data corruption. For example, zip files seem much more resilient than gzipped tarballs because each file is compressed separately. Digital copies are really not that durable, we just sometimes confuse ease of copying with durability. This sometimes helps, but only if you can have distributed copies.