Since fields of research and topics of investigation in the human and social sciences have greatly changed in recent years, and analogue photography itself has increasingly become a focus of scholarly research, it is essential, according to the Florence Declaration, to overcome the traditional equivalence between analogue photographs and their digital reproduction.
Particular emphasis is placed on the tactile features of analogue photos, which are indispensable for their use in research and which are inevitably lost during the process of digital reproduction.
The combination of visual and material qualities with which an analogue photo is distinguished would, in the digitization process itself, be lost and its complexity inevitably reduced.
The physical context of an analogue photo library and the opportunities it opens up for research are fundamentally different from the conditions of a database that can be consulted online.
In the view of the Florence Declaration it is therefore essential that the photo archive, not only as a tool, but also as an object of research, be preserved in all its structures and functions and that continuing access to it be guaranteed.