The benefit of such a thing could be that copies could be studied, annotated, and carried into the field without endangering the original.
Even if the original was sabotaged for some reason, there would still be copies that could be used to keep it backed up so that it would not be completely lost.
Not only could the copies be annotated, updated, and distributed without altering the original historical record, but it could also make it easier to share it and make teaching safer and more accessible to that kind of information that would be more difficult to make available in its original state.
With that thought in mind, Ash had even gone as far as providing a digital copy that they could use themselves for those exact purposes.
Not only did she gain digital copies for herself, but she had ended up paying them back in a way by granting them a means of preserving it, passing it on and allowing others to learn from it depending on what they ended up doing with it.
