Bearing in mind all the hype (and not to
mention the money) that surrounds digital imaging (which I
would suggest is the most common form of digitisation we all
encounter), I am beginning to feel like the small child
pointing out the Emperor's nakedness at the parade by even
suggesting such a question. After all, digitisation must be
worthwhile, surely? Everyone's doing it, from the largest
national libraries to the smallest institutions; and if
nothing else, just look at all the lovely pictures that we can
download now. Ah, but remember the story of "The Emperor's New
Clothes." Just because the crowd seemingly agrees on something
does not necessarily make it correct. Every now and then we
need someone to stop the parade and
to point out some obvious
facts, or at least get us to question what we are
doing. As I said before, it's cathartic.
 For
most people digitisation equates
to digital imaging
Before proceeding, I
think it is a good idea to pin down exactly what I mean by
"digitisation." A strict definition might be the conversion of
analog media to digital form (hence the fact that in many
books "conversion" and "digitisation" are synonymous). The
original media or source material might be printed text or
images, but we should never forget that it could also include
audio and video (or, time-based media). Nevertheless, a quick
glance at the main projects that have taken place within the
library sector quickly reveals that for most people,
digitisation equates to digital imaging - that is to say, the
creation of a still digital facsimile of a source item, such
as a rare manuscript, photograph, slide, journal, painting,
monograph, exam paper, and so on.
OK then, now that we
are clear as to what I mean by digitisation, is it worth
doing? I suspect that if you ask anyone who has actually
worked on a project for a reasonable length of time, the
answer could well be a categorical "no" as he would remember
all of the things that went wrong, the systems that crashed,
the images that needed to be recaptured, the external vendors
that failed to deliver, and so on.
Yet such a
subjective answer is pretty unhelpful. To fully answer the
question, we need to be as objective as possible and to look
also at the benefits that such projects offer, and pretty
quickly we find ourselves steering toward such ideas as "value
for money." I would suggest, though, that this in turn is
problematic, because in most cases the costs and benefits are
very difficult to estimate in terms of dollars and cents, or
pounds and pennies. Yet the terminology that surrounds such an
approach is appropriate. In other words we should look at the
cost of digitisation, the benefits derived from it, and then,
most importantly, compare the act of digitisation with other
possible scenarios. So, digitisation then - is it worth it?
Weighing some cost
issues
Numerous
digitisation projects have outlined the costs they
encountered, and you can also look to the charges of
commercial digitisation agencies to get some idea of the
figures we are dealing with. But, whenever I have attempted to
look at these, I run into two main difficulties: 1) The number
of caveats and variables that have to be taken into account,
which will ultimately dictate the total costs, are
bewildering; and 2) there is the underlying suspicion that
these really do not reflect the true cost of the project. In
my recent book on digital imaging, 1 I adopted the approach of
looking at the unit costs of digitising a particular item
(i.e., a page or photograph), derived from the reports of
various projects and initiatives, and presented this as an
average. (See the chart entitled "Sample Costs for
Digitisation.")
Here we can see that
the unit cost of digitising a single image is listed, but the
variations (the different columns) are due to the original
format of the source document and the specifications used for
conversion (the higher the "dpi" or "dots per inch," the
better quality the image, for example). However, this is only
part of the story. Reports and studies following from
completed digitisation projects consistently note that the
cost of conversion often only accounts for as little as
one-third of the costs of the entire project.2 When you fully
account for such things as assembling the source material,
clearing copyright, setting up the machines checking the
quality of the output, post-editing, cataloguing the item,
delivering the item, managing the project, and so on, the real
unit cost of digitising an item could be three to four times
the figures listed above. In other words, the real cost of
digitising and delivering a printed black-and-white,
letter-sized page at 300 dpi 1-bit could be as high as 54
cents.
What are the benefits?
So what are the
benefits of digitising? This has been explored in depth
elsewhere, but in summary the listed advantages offered by
digitisation tend to come under the headings of increasing
access, preservation, and meeting strategic goals (i.e.,
raising the profile of the institution running the project,
and so on). The first, allowing increased access to the
object, is the most often cited benefit of digitisation. An
electronic facsimile of a page, for example, can be
theoretically copied and distributed ad infinitum without any
degradation in quality (if correct standards are maintained).
More importantly, a single copy can be mounted on a server
(most commonly a Web server), and this can be viewed and
downloaded by a large number of users (possibly in the region
of hundreds of thousands), simultaneously, and from any
location in the world (assuming appropriate access
restrictions and server technology).
The clear advantage
of such a system is that it liberates the document (albeit a
facsimile) from the constraints of traditional access methods.
Take, for example, a digital image of a folio from a rare
manuscript. Traditionally users may only be allowed access to
the original item if they have an appropriate reader's card
and a good and validated reason. Most importantly they would
have to physically go to the manuscript itself, which may
involve travel, time, and/or money. However if a digital
facsimile of the folio was mounted on the Web, for example,
and made freely accessible, suddenly everyone can look at the
image from the comfort of his own home, office, or school.
This example also leads us to the second-cited advantage of
digitisation, namely preservation. Although the preservation
of digital objects is a discussion in itself, the above
scenario does imply that the original item might be handled
less, or at least that the curators would have an extra reason
for restricting access to the print manuscript.
Let's make
comparisons
Now let's analyse
digitisation as an alternative to other possible actions. The
simplest example would be to take an item, consider the costs
and benefits of digitising it, and then compare this with not
digitising it. The easiest quantifiable method to use would be
how this affects access. (I would argue, for example, that it
is extremely difficult to measure the fulfilment of strategic
goals, or to quantify the loss of an item if it is not
preserved.) With access we can draw up a simple example based
on usage statistics.
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Let's
take an article (for which copyright has been cleared) that is
10 pages long, printed in black and white with no graphics.
Our table suggests that the unit cost of digitising this would
be USD1.80 (10 pages at 18 cents each), but our real costs
would be more in the region of three times that amount, or
USD5.40. Even so, for this amount we would now have a digital
facsimile of the article that we could place on the Web and
make available to our readers.
Now let's look at
what would happen if we did not digitise the item, and kept to
the traditional ways of making this available to more than one
person at a time. Here the only obvious alternative (outside
of taking out secondary subscriptions, that is) would be to
photocopy the article. Even discounting the time that this
would take the staff to do, we could say that a full copy of
the item would cost in the region of 30 cents to photocopy.
Now let us look at
the two scenarios together. In short, it is clear that by the
19th use of the article on the Web site, we are already saving
money over traditional reproduction (19 photocopies would cost
USD5.70). In other words then, if the technology is all in
place to digitise the item and deliver it across networks, and
if the item is in reasonable demand, in most cases,
digitisation and delivery of the source item by electronic
means quickly becomes cost-effective.
Comparing
digitisation with acquisition
Where it becomes
slightly more contentious is to compare digitisation (the
creation of an item) with acquisition (purchasing an item). To
put it another way, many libraries or institutions have to
face the choice between launching a digitisation project or
using the funds toward other activities such as traditional
collection development. I would argue that because of the
perceived "prestige" of having a digitisation project,
libraries and institutions have often chosen to embark on such
a venture without ever asking whether they (or more
importantly their readers) were receiving better value from
this, as opposed to purchasing a traditional resource. In
other words, "digitisation" has often experienced a privileged
position in strategic thinking, which may not have happened if
the issue had been judged more fairly.
Again we need to
present alternative scenarios for comparison, and here I have
to refer to my knowledge of the market in the U.K., and in
particular in higher education. In Britain, one of the most
important resources for the education sector is the Web of
Science, which contains the various ISI citation indexes. This
is used in nearly every subject area by researchers day in,
day out. Due to the national funding of universities in the
U.K., an institution can take out an annual subscription to
the Web of Science for around USD14,500. It's true that this
is a recurrent cost, but even so, average statistics suggest
that a U.K. university would register around 21,000 user
sessions a year for this product (and each session, of course,
could be hiding several successful searches).
If, however, we took
the same amount of money and put it into digitisation we can
begin to see where this example is taking us. To do this,
let's take an extreme example - the rare, priceless
manuscript, which will need to be digitised at the highest
possible quality. Looking at our cost table, each folio could
cost in the region of USD4.82 to capture. Even a small
manuscript therefore, of around 200 folios, would cost around
USD964 to digitise, and when it comes to delivering this to
the reader (and taking into account all the extra costs), this
could amount to nearly USD3,000 per volume.
Now let's compare
the two scenarios. If we had USD14,500 to spend, then we could
either digitise and deliver five rare manuscripts at the
highest possible quality, or take out a year's subscription to
the Web of Science. The question we should be asking,
therefore, is which would be the most useful to the readers?
On the one hand we would be presenting a beautifully crafted
Web site, full of wondrous images, but in reality this would
probably only be of interest to a small group of scholars. On
the other hand we could have access to a major research tool
covering all subject areas. In this extreme example then, the
"worth" of digitisation would come under some suspicion.
Of course, this is
an exaggerated case. If we were taking an item that was a lot
cheaper to capture and would be in much greater demand
(examination papers, for example) then quite quickly the
balance shifts back. Furthermore, we should never forget that
any digitisation brings the hidden results of new equipment
and raised skill levels. On the other hand though, it is
undoubtedly true that many of the digitisation projects that
have been undertaken so far do concentrate on rare or unique
items of undoubted aesthetic value, but outside of a few
subjects, they have little consequence to most readers. The
question is, Could this money have been better spent
elsewhere?
What's the final
answer?
I do not have an
answer, to be honest, apart from the fact that each case
should be treated separately. But I would like to raise the
need for, at the very least, opening up this debate. When we
look at the value of a digitisation project we must not simply
compare it with the alternative scenario of not digitising the
item; but instead we must also look to other areas of
collection development that may yield better results for our
readers. In the foreword to my book, I termed the 1990s the
"decade of digitisation" and indeed this is true, and in many
ways it is a cause for celebration. Yet we are all now older,
more experienced, and wiser in the ways of digitisation. We
are now, therefore, in a position to really evaluate its
benefits in real terms. Above all we should not be forgetting
that our primary aim is to meet the requirements of the
readers and to provide them with the resources they really
need to use.
Stuart D. Lee is
head of the Learning Technologies Group at the University of
Oxford and deputy manager for the Humanities Computing Unit.
He has a Ph.D. in medieval literature and is a member of
Oxford's English faculty where he lectures on electronic
publishing. He managed the digitisation project of the
manuscripts of the poet Wilfred Owen (
http:// info.ox.ac.uk /jtap) and was the main researcher on
the Mellon-funded study into digitising the collections at
Oxford (
http:// www.bodley.ox.ac.uk /scoping). He has
recently finished a book entitled Digital Imaging: A Practical
Handbook, which is available from Neal-Schuman Publishers in
the U.S. or The Library Association in the U.K. His e-mail
address is stuart.lee@oucs.ox.ac.uk.
Footnotes
1. Lee, Stuart.
Digital Imaging: A Practical Handbook. New York: Neal-Schuman
Publishers, Inc., 2001.
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