Physical books do actually matter to a lot of people, especially if these books have a history.

In fact, books are really no different than any other physical item in this respect, and their ability to be digitized does not decrease their value as physical objects in the slightest.

There was an interesting Radiolab episode called "Things"[1] about exactly this. I'd recommend listening to if if you're interested in what makes things with a history valuable.

[1] - https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/episodes/thing...

Also, to track the origins and the history of a physical book you can do material analyses (carbon dating etc.) that are impossible if you just have the digital version.

That's not entirely true. While it might be considered a bit of am extreme example, think about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropodermic_bibliopegy

The paper and ink can tell/show us things about the technical environment in which these books were created. If you sell them off to a collector, scientists lose access to them.

[1] https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-m...

> The value is in the content, not the paper and ink.

Why wouldn't this logic apply to e.g. paintings as well? Or even sculpture and various historical artifacts...

Edit:

I was asking the question rhetorically, to highlight the weakness of the original observation. Personally I do think there can be intrinsic historical value in the object of a book, regardless of the information that it happens to store.

I liken it to prototype/prerelease software - the data is certainly valuable, but at the same time a physical artifact with actual provenance can be worth a pretty penny too. It also irks me when people say "oh, it devalues the physical artifact if you preserve the data". No, because the physical artifact itself cannot be duplicated.

No, some subset of the reading public will love the physical artifact and feel that it complements the content. I love my Kindle and phone and have read hundreds of books on them, but I find digital devices a poor way to read poetry: ebook formats lack support for the complex typesetting of much poetry, and even if it is scanned as a PDF the result is cumbersome.

This is true of even some novels. I found it very difficult to get into Proust on my Kindle, and only once I bought a set of the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade volumes did I start to enjoy reading it.

Of course, with regard to antique books from past centuries, an even smaller demographic will want to collect and read those and refuse digital editions or more recent printings, but those people still exist.

I'd generally agree though thinking it thru - there have been instances in which researchers have found hidden ink/pages hidden under pictures and other such discoveries that would not be possible with a simple digital scan. Xray's and other spectral light scans on-top of the visual spectrum RGB scans may be a solution but that is not at a level for today's scanning of such works and costly already without that step.

So mixed feelings and in general, yes they should be scanned - but as a reason to offload the original - that has some grey area's that would need addressing.