Nice. I suppose it also depends on how rare the item being scanned is. For a recent printed work, with multiple copies it's less important, while scanning a fragment from a Genizah or a notebook is much more careful process.
The first time I encountered a digital facsimile was when I studied medieval literature in Germany.
There is the great "Codex Manesse" [1] (I once had the opportunity to see the real one in an exhibition) that is one of a kind.
It is irreplaceable and there are but a selected few people who are even allowed to touch it (with gloves). It could not be damaged, but was digitized without harm nonetheless [2].
So I actually never thought of digitalisation as a destructive process.
Well ideally digitisation would not be destructive, I suppose. With any preservation or analysis of historical artefacts there is some risk/reward calculation. Like some books are so delicate that there is an approach to scan them while still closed:
