 There are two technical difficulties with this process, first with the cutting and second with the scanning.More precise and less destructive than cutting pages with a paper guillotine or razor or scissors is the technique of meticulous unbinding by hand, assisted with tools.This technique has been successfully employed for tens of thousands of pages of archival original paper scanned for the Riazanov Library digital archive project from newspapers and magazines and pamphlets, varying from 50 to 100 years old and more, and often composed of fragile, brittle paper.