Digitisation and Electronic Copyright: an overview

Digitisation, as it will be explored in this issue of VINE, can be defined as the creation of an electronic version of an item such as a text, photograph, slide, illustration, microfilm or map. Combined with the forces of the Internet and CD‐ROM/DVD technology it offers the potential to allow previously inaccessible material to be viewed by fresh eyes and saved for posterity without risk of deterioration by handling or age.