I think your analogy is Ok for one end of the continuum. Things like General Washington's sword or Benedict Arnolds boot... scanning and discarding makes no sense. But if you have a copy of a newspaper that was printed in the thousands, and hundreds are already in archives, shy not scane the one in the local library and send the original out the door? (This is a question designed to foster debate, not necessarily my opinion.) >>> [log in to unmask] 12/08/00 17:16 PM >>> Discarding the hard copy is like shooting Enrico Caruso in the heart after he's recorded for Thomas A. Edison. While overpopulation demagogues will celebrate the empty space created by the absence of Caruso's body, a couple of us will, no doubt, miss the original. Some of us will mourn the original because we loved his art, moralists will play the death penalty card, and the technicians will report that we should have waited for digital technology before we killed him. Thomas W. Perrin PS: In conservation, as in medicine, the first principle is to do no harm. There are no exceptions to the rule.