In the 21st century, many book collections are digital archives that are not susceptible to the wear and tear their paper brothers once feared. St. Petersburg’s Presidential Library is home to the largest virtual collection in Russia — one of more than 250,000 books on history and law in addition to rare documents and editions. A large part of these resources are available online to whoever wants them, but there are also some that can only be used in the library’s own reading room in the historic Synod building. A 3-D model of the publication appears on the computer screen so that readers can thoroughly examine the cover, text and illustrations. There they can also find all of the hand-written notes made hundreds of years ago by people such as the author or other readers, including Emperor Peter the First.