# Piql Technology > Continuing my series on the 500x500xBAV project. The Vatican Library chose Piql: data is stored on 35 mm film in alternating digital and analogue formats. - Canonical page: https://shorin.me/en/blog/2024/06/piql/ - Page language: English - Published: 2024-06-10 - Tags: BibliotecaApostolicaVaticana, Preservation, Library, DigitalTransformation - Russian version: https://shorin.me/blog/2024/06/piql/index.md In one of my previous posts, I wrote about the Vatican Library’s project to preserve 500 priceless manuscripts for 500 years – [500x500xBAV](https://shorin.me/en/blog/2024/05/500-na-500/index.md). In that post, you will find links to my thoughts on the importance of striking a balance between digital and analogue forms of information, as well as ensuring that information can still be read from its storage medium hundreds of years from now. During our visit to the Vatican Library, we were told that it had chosen technology developed by Piql for this task. Several ideas underpin Piql’s approach: - Information is recorded on 35 mm film (remember that paper turns to [dust](https://shorin.me/en/blog/2024/05/book-neutralization/index.md) within a few decades); - The frames on the film alternate between a digital representation of the image as a QR code and an analogue version. This guarantees that the image will survive – whatever technology may look like in 500 years, a light source will still exist. All our descendants will need to do is shine a torch through the film onto a wall, and they will see the image (remember filmstrips?); - All the information needed to recover the data, including source code, file-format specifications and instructions for recreating the technology, is stored on each film alongside the data as human-readable text. The encoding technology was designed with the future in mind from the outset: it must ensure that the data can be recovered centuries from now. An aside: one of our guides told us that, for simplicity, we could imagine the QR code as containing a snapshot of a virtual machine with an operating system, all the necessary libraries, software for viewing the file, the file itself, and so on. That is not actually how it works, of course, but I think the idea is clear – the QR code contains everything required. Piql does not rely on any data, software, fonts, formats or anything else outside that film. This is only the first post about Piql technology. In later posts, I will describe the technology in more detail. ## Media ## Original posts - LinkedIn: