I’m a grad student, and one of my project assistant tasks is to transcribe the letters of Robert Southey. While I’ve been able to work on several in person, many of the letters I’ve been transcribing are terrible reproductions – I imagine a lurid history of being photocopied, and then photocopied again – or photographed, scanned, printed, and then photocopied. They’re faint, blurry, held at strange angles (so that only part of the page is in focus, say right down the center), and occasionally with an arm or hand in the margin. Never before have I appreciated quality digital reproduction of primary materials!