Asset digitization: Moving beyond facsimile

The digitization of primary sources has long emphasized facsimile as the primary goal. We show examples illustrating the shift from facsimile-focused to digitization as data collection, enabling a much broader set of goals: analysis, restoration, narrative construction, and visualization. While facsimile remains an important by-product, digitization as data collection enables new possibilities in digital restoration, context-preserving language translation, detection of change over time, and the construction of high-level narratives that provide a compelling interpretive framework. Each of these examples is made possible by acquiring more data than what may be necessary for facsimile alone, part of a necessary change in the mindset of conservators, curators, and digitization teams.