You don't need to run the data on a punch card or a similarly outdated format. It is the actual data that might be important. So, with a document, or, hell, a music file or photo, you transfer it to a newer format when the old becomes obsolete. Yes, some books have survived, but a lot of books haven't.
Just look at magazines, or news papers. They too are mostly lost, yet you might get lucky. Movies these days are so often shot digitally, and the good thing about that is that you don't have actual film to protect - you can make as many copies as you want and have them stored various places in the world so that they are safe from fire and general degradation.
Oh, well, I see the fun in finding an old book, but in reality I think that it's at least as likely to go missing (or go up in smoke) as a digital file is unable to being read. And a book, regardless of it being in paper or digital form is not executing code like the punch cards of yore.