transcribing old docs

Nico de Jong wrote: Storage availability and data transfer rates are so much better than they once were. I can't help but feel that at some point the best formats are going to encapsulate both scanned images and raw text - the images will be as faithful reproductions of the original as possible (greyscale, and including full colour where necessary) whilst each page also has a plain-text transcribed version attached. That way you get something that's as close to the original 'look and feel' of the document as possible (and allows you to cross-reference between the electronic version and a real copy), but you also get modern abilities that come with having text that can be searched, copied electronically etc. Lots of historians seem concerned about preserving the raw content - which is fantastic. But pulling that data out of its original context feels a little like running an emulator versus the real hardware. cheers J.