Xylographic books of the 15th century, the so-called blockbooks are objects of extreme rarity and considerable value. Due to their age and as a result of paper corrosion caused by the copper content of coloring pigments, some books are in rather poor condition.Digitization opens up new perspectives for research in such rare and fragile materials, as many of the surviving blockbooks have never been reproduced in print. Furthermore, the technology of digital infrared photography for the first time allows a comprehensive documentation of the watermarks which occur in the paper on which blockbooks were printed.
Peter Meinlschmidt, Markus Brantl, Irmhild Schäfer, Bettina Wagner, Rahel Bacher, Volker Märgner, "Digitizing and Archiving of All Information Taken From Rare Blockbooks" in Proc. IS&T Archiving 2012, 2012, pp 238 - 243, https://doi.org/10.2352/issn.2168-3204.2012.9.1.art00053