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"Even as Americans fill the movie theaters to see the latest releases, few are aware that up to half the films produced in this country before 1950—and as much as 90 percent of those made before 1920—are lost forever," said James Billington of the Library of Congress. With the passage of decades, more and more films are vanishing due to deterioration of the nitrate stock on which older films were shot, or to the more recently discovered "vinegar syndrome," which threatens the acetate-based stock on which most motion pictures were reproduced

Here is a link to a press release from the Library of Congress about the importance of digitaizing and achiving films before they are lost forever.

http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2007/07-254.html