The Environmental Impact of Electronc Records

There was an interesting article in the New York Times examining the potential environmental impact of using electronic medical records. Basically they could be either positive or negative depending on how they are implemented. The article does not address archives, but it raises the question of what the impact of digital records will be on them. Will they reduce trips to the archives and therefore reduce gas consumption? It is difficult to tell for certain since making records available digitally allows for access by users who might not have set foot in the archives in the first place. Clearly more research is needed.