Disbinding books with minimal artifactual value met little faculty resistance when high-quality replacement facsimiles were produced, and additional copies can be printed on demand. It is anticipated that as data exchange standards are developed and implemented, the time between refreshing will increase from four years to ten years and beyond. This study investigated the quality achieved with binary scanning only. Scanning resolutions and file formats can represent a complex tradeoff between time, file size, fidelity, on-screen display, printing, and equipment availability. The study had as a primary emphasis the production of printed facsimiles that were largely black and white text in a timely and cost-effective manner.
Grey scale can offer an advantage for on-screen viewing.
For instance, on a low resolution screen display, two bits of grey at 100 dpi may be more readable than 600 dpi or 300 dpi binary. The advantage is lost, however, when the on-screen image is enlarged. The quality associated with binary or grey scale is also dependent on the equipment used, for instance binary scanning produces a better paper copy when it is printed on a binary printer. As such the technical specifications for microfilm vary from one generation to the next. See also, Don Willis, A Hybrid Systems Approach to Preserving Printed Materials using Microfilm and Digital Imaging , presentation at the AIIM conference, April 1991.