 Hand unbinding will preserve text that runs into the gutters of bindings, and most critically allows more easy and complete high quality scans to be made of two page wide material, such as center cartoons, graphic art, and photos in magazines.The digital archive of The Liberator 1918-1924 on Marxist Internet Archive nicely demonstrates the quality of two page wide graphic art scans made possible by careful hand unbinding prior to flat bed or other scanning.Unbinding techniques vary with the binding technology, from simply removing a few staples to unbending and removing nails to meticulously grinding down of layers of glue on the spine of a book to precisely the right point, followed by laborious removal of the string used to hold the book together.