Digital Images: a Valuable Scholar's Tool or Misleading Material

Abstract

The contribution looks at the various methods of digitization applied to our written cultural heritage today and the varying intents laying at the foundation of their application. It shows the different ways of using the data collected through the digitization process and points both at the benefits offered by digital images and the verifiable loss of information in a digital image compared to the original. The three case studies discussed in the paper seek to prove the author's principal thesis: "We are only able to preserve what we know and understand, while the original can hold its secrets still waiting for us to comprehend them."