Seems like a clear case where public interest should override private property.
I wonder how many more libraries will get lost before people start being pragmatic about this.
All this handwringing about needing 10000 dpi scans and advanced imaging technology means no scans will get done, and there'll be a lot of sobbing and rending of hair when the next collection gets flooded, lost, chewed by mice, rotted to dust, stolen or goes up in smoke.
What we're seeing from archivists is a prime example of gatekeeping and job security.
>Now, with the benefit of today’s technological era, the Library is digitalising their entire collection of manuscripts, which includes over 80 000 codices, mostly from the Middle Ages and the Humanism Period.
One of the most flatly incredible manuscript discoveries of the nineteenth century is a short treatise called the "Didache." We knew that such a thing existed, because writers as early as the 3rd century mention it, but it was presumed lost. An 11th century manuscript of it was found in a library in 1875, and most scholars now believe that the text dates to the first century, making it the oldest known Christian "catechism" (one which, intriguingly, seems to stand outside the Pauline tradition).
Obviously, this was and is an absolutely amazing thing for students of late antiquity in general and early Christianity in particular, and it had been sitting there in plain sight (so to speak) for centuries. It would surprise me not at all if we find similar things in the Vatican collection.
This pragmatic preservation was already on my mind because of something that happened last night. I was driving on the motorway when a drunk driver caused a huge high speed crash right in front of me. I have a dash cam,and it captured the whole thing. The police officer on the scene used his body cam to film the incident from the screen of my dash cam. I'm sure it was a terrible copy, but it was an immediate backup.
Of course he then collected my dash cam as evidence too. Their digital evidence team must be on point too because I got a thank you email within a couple of hours which said they had already successfully downloaded the original recording and were sending my dash cam back to me.
Historians could learn a lot from this, ordinary police officers operating in difficult conditions are doing a better job of preservation than historians who's only job is preserving and studying historical artifacts under much easier conditions.
Send it to me. I'll have it digitized in about an hour. Just turn the pages and click with my phone.
Yes, I know that professional archivists would rather give birth to a goat than do that, but consider:
1. It's the text that's important, and a handheld phone camera captures that just fine. Try it and see.
2. It's immediate.
3. It's cheap.
4. The worry about damaging it irretrievably will be alleviated, as now a backup exists.