Incredibly stupid

“Have any special collections had experience with a commercial publisher
of digital products that disbinds your rare books for ease of scanning
them? A large special collection which contracted with a well-known
vendor of digital library products has had a number of its rare
sammelbände disbound during the scanning process. The vendor has also
suggested to the library’s director that the vendor should be allowed to
disbind the library’s 17th through 19th-century manuscripts to make them
easier (and presumably cheaper) to scan. In this day of improved
technology such as the Zeutschel and other book scanners, is it ever
really necessary to break a book in order to capture page images? (These
volumes sewn normally, not stab sewn or stapled). If such destruction is
not necessary, how do you communicate this to library administrators who
think they’re getting a terrific deal because the publisher is paying
for the content?” (EXLIBRIS-L)

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