Chatting with Ander Hammer and Herbert_West in the IRC has lead to the following suggestion.
Audio logs can be found. They can not be read directly like, say, lab notes, simply by examing the object. Instead, they must be powered, and must be turned on (like an mp3 player, although a specific log might be selected). They make noise, and output messages at regular intervals until they’ve worked their way through the whole log (at which point it can be replayed), meaning that you can get the lore as you’re exploring, over time.
Some lab notes, black boxes, and other existing content might be worth transferring over to this format.
Furthermore, players should be able to record things on to these devices (both ambient sounds and speaking into them and conversations with NPCS).