Back to the scriptorium: amid budget woes, vendors and librarians find a common purpose

Picture medieval monks hunched over their desks in the scriptorium as they labor to copy manuscripts. A 21st-century version of this activity is being repeated daily in the world's libraries and publishing houses as major digitization projects seek to preserve millions of printed books and documents. The work of medieval scribes ensured that the classics were available when the invention of movable type and the printing press made books accessible to the masses, transforming the world. Today's laborers are hunched over digitization equipment, but their goal is the same: copying and preserving resources so they are available now and into the future.