Thanks for posting these - interesting stuff.  
 
I like to see people using alternative methods and it often gives an insight into how and why we do things today.  You didn't say anything about how he was taking the shots - what sort of canmera, etc.

My bet is that his glass plates will be around long after any digital files he makes from them.  It seems no problem to use and print from glass plates made in the late 19th or early 20thC, yet  try and open a digital RAW file of a format from 10yrs ago you have got real difficulties.

And every one said, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,---
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Edward Lear
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/jumblies.html