My own research area, for example, is the Jewish family in late antiquity. Partially due to the inaccessibility of the epigraphical material, virtually all previous scholarship on the Jewish family in late antiquity has been based solely on the rabbinic literature, resulting in a very skewed and idealized portrayal of the topic. Similarly, study of women in this milieu, who occupy only a peripheral role in the rabbinic sources, has been hampered by the absence of such a corpus. Epigraphy, by its nature, is a shifting field. Previously published inscriptions are constantly being reread and reinterpreted, and new inscriptions are always being found.
Electronic storage is thus an ideal medium for the collection of inscriptions.
When stored electronically, inscriptions can be updated easily and the search tools can take new data into account instantly. Assembling such a collection should be a collaborative effort. As scholars discover and correct inscriptions they can submit their contributions to an editorial board, which must then decide if and how to incorporate each contribution into the database. Ultimately, because inscriptions are most frequently discovered as part of archeological digs, the inscriptions should be linked to the archeological reports. Such reports, which include text as well as pictures and architectural reconstructions, should be linked to the inscription database.