Yesterday a friend presented me with the gift of a book when we met at church. It was a gracious and generous act and I was grateful. So, when I got home, I took a minute to sit down and write a thank you note. I put the note in an envelope, addressed the envelope, and put a stamp on it. This morning, I’ll take the envelope to the bank of mailboxes down the street from our house where it will slide into a slot to be collected by the letter carrier. It will be taken to the post office where it will be placed with other pieces of mail heading to another post office. Sometime tomorrow or the next day it will be delivered to my friend’s home by another letter carrier.

The delivery of paper mail has been considered an essential governmental function since the founding of the United States. In addition to private correspondence, there are essential papers for business that travel in the form of paper. Last spring a trust for which I am a trustee sold a piece of property. The initial offer and counter offer were handled electronically. We e-signed documents to enter into a contract with a realtor, transact business with an attorney, and arrange for the transfer of funds. However, the law required that we provide what were called “wet signatures” on the actual deed for the property. The paper which we signed in ink before a notary was delivered by an overnight courier and is on file in the courthouse in the county where the property is located.

There are lots of places where electronic records are replacing paper records. One place of which I am aware is maps and charts for aviation. When I earned my pilot’s license we were required to have up to date paper maps of the area we were traveling in the airplane when we flew. The maps were dated and new maps were released at regular intervals that showed any new towers or other obstacles that had been constructed. They also showed the correct difference between magnetic north and true north for navigation purposes. Each time new charts were issued, we would purchase new charts for the areas we were traveling and replace the old, dated charts in the airplane. These days, pilots do not carry cases of paper charts as they move from airplane to airplane. Electronic devises store the information that used to be displayed on paper charts and display that information on screens that are a part of the airplane’s instruments and portable devices carried by pilots.

Paper navigation charts for boats and ships at sea are also being replaced with electronic versions, though in certain parts of the world the electronic charts begin as hand drawn charts that are scanned and made into electronic charts. The depiction of complex shorelines, the presence of piers and docks, changing sea levels, and other features that must be understood for safe navigation on the waters still requires a human touch and involves the use of paper.

In 2021, 96% of hospitals and 78% of physicians in the United States were found to use electronic health records. Despite the high use of electronic records, I frequently am required to fill out paper forms when I visit a doctor’s office. My family physician’s office asks patients to arrive 15 minutes before each visit for the purpose of updating records. The process involves filling out a form and answering questions on paper. That paper is given to a receptionist who enters the data into the computer. Each time the practice makes a change in the software used for digital records maintenance, there is a new round of paperwork that is used to confirm that the electronic data has been correctly transferred.

Each time I fill out a new form at a doctor’s office, I remember my mother. When she was in her eighties she was hospitalized for a short time. I was visiting her in the hospital when a nurse or clerk from the hospital came into her room with a paper form on a clipboard and began to ask her questions. The staff person started by asking routine questions including my mother’s name and birth date. My mother gave the answers and then added, “Honey, if you are having trouble remembering, I can write it down for you.” She had been asked those questions so many times by that same clerk that she was tiring of the repetition.

I read in a BBC article that Wikipedia, the giant online resource that is continually being updated and edited by people all around the world and accessed via smartphone and computer, has an emergency plan called the “Terminal Event Management Policy.” The policy includes procedures should there be some event in the future such as “imminent societal collapse” or “imminent extinction level event,” Wikipedia editors are to print out pages of the online encyclopedia for posterity. The policy assumes that there could be circumstances when paper would be more reliable than computer-based forms of memory.

Another example of the persistence of paper in commerce is the huge online retail company Amazon. It is one of the largest consumers of paper in the world. Most of the paper consumed by the company is in the form of cardboard boxes used to ship retail goods.

We speak of a paperless society, but have difficulty imagining it. In the Star Trek: Voyager episode “The Disease,” Captain Kathryn Janeway reminds a crew member that the Starfleet’s handbook on personal relationships is three centimeters thick. The comments suggests that the handbook, in the year 2375, is printed on paper. The writers of the fictional story could imagine futuristic modes of travel beyond what may be physically possible, but they could not quite imagine a scenario in which the fleet of star ships could operate without paper manuals of some kind.

I’ve even been known to provide people with printed copies of my journal entries from time to time. And despite my deep respect for the value of old growth forests and work to help preserve natural places, I still treasure the smell and feel of a brand new book and enjoy coming home from the bookshop with a volume to keep. And, yes, I still write notes and mail them when I could send an email or text message. I also treasure the hand written notes I receive.

I’m not done with paper yet.