Twenty-three times the height of the London Shard - that's how high the documents in Norfolk Record Office would tower if they were all stacked on top of each other.

From medieval vellum documents from the 11th century, to Norfolk parish registers beloved of people tracing their family trees and the latest minutes of Norfolk County Council meetings, Norfolk Record Office holds some 10 million records.

Eastern Daily Press: Norfolk Record Office holds documents dating back to the 11th CenturyNorfolk Record Office holds documents dating back to the 11th Century (Image: Newsquest)

But archivists have warned more recent records of Norfolk's history could be in danger of being lost, because rapid changes in technology could make them impossible to view.

While records of organisations, including Norwich Cathedral and Norfolk businesses, have been carefully conserved in climate-controlled storerooms within the Archive Centre at County Hall, a fresh challenge is how to deal with newer, digital, records.

Eastern Daily Press: Norfolk Record Office is within The Archive CentreNorfolk Record Office is within The Archive Centre (Image: Antony Kelly)

Gary Tuson, county archivist at Norfolk Record Office, said digital obsolescence is an increasing problem - with computer documents created in now outdated formats or for company-specific systems - presenting a challenge when it comes to storing them for future generations.

Mr Tuson said: "You try opening up a Word 97 file nowadays! This information is being stored as zeros and ones and you need to have the right software to be able to use those zeros and ones.

"One of the ways is to migrate them to use a process called the Open Archival Information System, which will mean they can be read for years to come."

Eastern Daily Press: Millions of documents are stored in Norfolk Record OfficeMillions of documents are stored in Norfolk Record Office (Image: Newsquest)

Mr Tuson said it was also crucial that information could be proven to be authentic.

As an example of how important archives can be, he pointed to the important role the county's archive has played in the government's contaminated blood scandal inquiry.

That inquiry is examining how thousands of patients in the 1970s and 1980s were infected with hepatitis and HIV after being treated with infected blood.

He said: "There's a huge amount of information which has been used in that inquiry, which shows the importance of records from 40 years ago.

"Those were public records that exist physically, but these days they would be digital.

"Ten years is a long time in the digital world and it's important that, in the long-term, those sorts of documents can still be accessed."