In the book, one character explains that tearing rather than cutting the books is specifically to get unpredictable unique shapes along the tears, to make match

In the book, one character explains that tearing rather than cutting the books is specifically to get unpredictable unique shapes along the tears, to make matching for reconstruction possible... There will be some loss, true. Even where everything is properly photoed, the programs will make some mismatches. Potentially, the error rate can be less than a few words per million volumes, far better than even hardcopy republishing with manual copyediting. -- Sharif, Rainbow's End p 129 But of course this is fiction. The parallels to what Harvard are doing are obvious, but I don't think anyone would seriously suggest building the Libreanome project in the real world.