Peter, on the other hand, I was recently asked for my files for Kult, and I had stored them on 3.5" magneto-optical rewritable disks (which seemed like state of the art, back in the mid-90's--burning CDs at your computer was still really new). However, I tossed that drive out long ago because it used a SCSI interface. I still have the disks, and maybe there is some service out there that can get the data...
And yes, many books--especially paperbacks--are printed on cheap, acidic paper that deteriorates (though I had not heard of them made to deliberately self-destruct!). When I was a kid, I read my mother's Nancy Drew books, and the yellowed paper in them would literally break off if your folded it. Back when I worked at the U.Va. library, acid deterioration in books was a real problem.