How can I afford to digitise my collections?

The issue

Opening up your institution’s wealth of unique materials through digitisation would give you a competitive edge at a time of rising student and academic expectations.

However, at a time of severe budget cuts, carefully considered business models are required if institutions are to reap the rewards of digitising and managing these collections.

What you can do

Assess how sustainable your content is

Our sustainability health check tool will help you identify the steps you need to take to assess the sustainability of your content, while our video lecture series offers inspiration for universities, museums and libraries, and considers sustainability in particularly challenging economic times.

Look at the bigger picture

Institutions should decide what to preserve based on long-term strategy, the material’s intrinsic value and how it might be used now and in the future. The resources to preserve collections should come from public-private partnerships, according to a study by the Blue Ribbon Task Force, an international initiative part-funded by Jisc.

Planning for digitising your content

Our interactive digitisation toolkit will guide you through the steps needed to digitise your content, including initial planning, the digitisation process itself, and how and where to store your digitised content so that it is easily discoverable.

Measuring success

Measuring how well your digital resources are used will guide future investment decisions. We’ve supported the development of a toolkit, to guide you through the quantitative and qualitative methods available to measure use and impact.

Case studies

Looking at the business models of 12 digital collections in Europe and North America, we found they combine a variety of techniques to secure funding, share costs and generate revenue. These include research grants, government and institutional funding, organisational partnerships, licensing, consulting fees, and subscriptions.

Looking ahead

We’re piloting a course to up-skill project leaders in creating sustainable digital innovation strategies.