Long-term archiving of digital data on microfilm

As our magnetic and optical media become increasingly difficult to access and data starts to corrupt, what can we do to best preserve our electronic information for longer than the current 7-10 year bursts of time? One solution might be to transcode and compress it all to 2D barcodes printed onto microfilm. From AlphaGalileo:

The team further suggests that in order to reduce the amount of microfilm used for any given repository and so cut conversion and re-digitization times it would be possible to convert a stream of text into a bar-code type system that would still be entirely analogue but would rely on knowledge of the conversion key to return the data to digital form from microfilm. Using such a system could render a tested 170 kilobyte file that requires 191 pages of microfilm space as just 12 or so printed as a two-dimensional barcode. Such a barcode would incorporate redundancy and be self-checking unlike a straight digital to analogue image scan of the text. Further compression is possible, if colour microfilm and barcodes were used for storage. This may provide a valuable, low-maintenance additional back-up for the original digital objects in addition to preservation activities needed for the on-line access copies.

(Via ACM TechNews)