Eh, its an overly sentimental way to look at things. Yeah on the surface it sounds like these books are being damaged, but in reality they're being given new li

Eh, its an overly sentimental way to look at things. Yeah on the surface it sounds like these books are being damaged, but in reality they're being given new life. Before you'd have to be physically present at Harvard to access these tomes, but after digitation they'll be available and searchable by anyone over the world. People might actually stumble upon the information via a related search instead of having to know of the existence of the specific document. This also increases their shelf life dramatically because they'll be spread digitally instead of being at the mercy of one fire or flood.