They had a very nice show on Nova the other night about the efforts to preserve The Declaration Of Independence.  They told how the conservators didn't try to reink any of the parchments, but instead just try to protect them from further deterioration.  We thought this would be a good thing to comment on about The Old Worlds.  Did They preserve historical documents, too?  Did They make great efforts to restore those that were fading away?
Did They ever!  The incredible thing is that all three of The Old Races developed virtually the same type of machine; a computerized reinker that could scan the documents, tell exactly where ink had been, and put a tiny drop of ink there just enough to restore the document back to its original condition.  These machines were considered so precise, so accurate at restoration that the people believed it was the same as the people who had originally written the documents redoing them!  
It is amazing the effort that people will go to to keep old things, things that they valued, but sometimes it is absolutely necessary to hang onto the things of the past, for without them we would have no future.