There are many aspects of digitisation that can be considered “political”, from selection for digitisation to modes of access to broader questions about ‘infrapolitics’. None of these is specific to our digital age and historical context is crucially important. Digitisation is only the most recent technological option for heritage preservation and reproduction, which has a history that dates back to the invention of the microfilm in the late 19th century, and the first uses of photography for research purposes in the early 20th. Similarly, the politics of heritage and the political dimensions of heritage preservation, as well as the relation between archives, social memory, knowledge and power have long been discussed by historians, philosophers, archival scientists and heritage scholars. And as long as archives have existed, the question of access has been key in determining <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rend="italic">who</hi> writes history.