JISC

Download the full report

JISC, in collaboration with the Research Information Network (RIN), commissioned a study to identify the key priorities for future digitisation of content held within UK Higher Education institutions.

Executive Summary

Traditionally, digitisation has been led by supply rather than demand. While end users are seen as a priority they are not directly consulted about which collections they would like to have made available digitally or why. This can be seen in a wide range of policy documents throughout the cultural heritage sector, where users are positioned as central but where their preferences are assumed rather than solicited. Post-digitisation consultation with end users is equally rare. How are we to know that digitisation is serving the needs of the Higher Education community and is sustainable in the long-term?

This project aimed to:

• Identify priority collections for potential digitisation housed within UK Higher Education's libraries, archives and museums as well as faculties and departments
• Assess users' needs and demand for Special Collections to be digitised across all disciplines
• Produce a synthesis of available knowledge about users' needs with regard to usability and format of digitised resources
• Provide recommendations for a strategic approach to digitisation within the wider context and activity of leading players both in the public and commercial sector

The project was carried out jointly by the Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR) and the Centre for Research in Library and Information Management (CERLIM) and has taken a collaborative approach to the creation of a user-driven digitisation prioritisation framework, encouraging participation and collective engagement between communities.

Between September 2008 and March 2009 the DiSCmap project team asked over 1,000 users, including intermediaries (vocational users who take care of collections) and end users (university teachers, researchers and students) a variety of questions about which physical and digital Special Collections they make use of and what criteria they feel must be considered when selecting materials for digitisation. This was achieved through workshops, interviews and two online questionnaires.

Although the data gathered from these activities has the limitation of reflecting only a partial view on priorities for digitisation – the view expressed by those institutions who volunteered to take part in the study - the project was able to develop a:

• 'long list' of 945 collections nominated for digitisation both by intermediaries and end-users from 70 HE institutions (see p. 21)
• framework of user-driven prioritisation criteria which could be used to inform current and future digitisation priorities; (see p. 45)
• set of 'short lists' of collections which exemplify the application of user-driven criteria from the prioritisation framework to the long list (see Appendix X): Collections nominated more than once by various groups of users; Collections related to a specific policy framework, eg HEFCE’s strategically important and vulnerable subjects for Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics; Collections on specific thematic clusters; Collections with highest number of reasons for digitisation.

Profile of the long list

From the data collected a profile of the long list of collections emerged, including:

Curatorial environment

53% of collections are housed within Libraries; 39% within Archives; 7% in museums and 1% are departmental collections (see p. 25)

Institution type

51% of the collections are from UK pre-1960 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs); 15% are hosted in Post-Robbins HEIs; and 8% are hosted in Post-1992 HEIs; in addition although DiSCmap targeted HEIs, 27% of the nominated collections – 252 in total, are stored in institutions outside of the HEI sector (see p. 26)

Age range

The highest number of nominated collections is from the first half of the 20th century (366 in total) followed by 340 collections from 19th century and 300 collections from the second half of 20th century. Amongst the nominated collections were 237 collections dated before the 18th century; and 100 collections from the 21st century. The total numbers are higher than the total number of nominated collections because some collections cover wider time spans. It is worth noting that oldest collections do not come as most popular nominations, as one could expect; the interest in modern materials is evident (see p. 27 for more details on the age range distribution)

Subject area

Top 5 subjects are History, Economic and Social History (219 collections), Combined subjects (168 collections), Creative Arts, Design and Music (130 collections), followed by Languages and Literature (79 nominated collections) and Social, Economic and Political Studies (53 collections). These most popular subjects confirm the better expressed need in digitised materials in the Humanities and Social Sciences (see p. 28)

IPR status

It is worth noting that almost half of the collections had unknown copyright status (409); the IPRs for 141 collections are held by the institution and for 184 collections are held by another party (see p. 29)

Material type

The most popular materials across the nominated collections included archival materials (in 178 of the nominations), books (172 nominated collections), manuscripts (135 nominated collections) and images (122 collections). Audio, maps, serials and video are nominated in a considerably lower number of cases (between 15 and 35 collections), see p. 30

Key findings

The analysis of the data from the long list and the criteria for digitisation advanced by both user communities shows that:

• The communities of both intermediary and end users are willing to express their view on prioritising digitisation of special collections; the participation in the project was a matter of good will and the good response (see p. 25) makes evident that there is definitely interest of the professional communities to express their opinion on the matter of digitisation needs. It should be noted here that the community of intermediaries sees collections on a finer level of granularity; end users often refer to super-collections such as the holdings of an institution
• The top user-driven priority criteria that emerged from consultation with both intermediaries and end users are: Improve access; Enhance impact on research and/on studies; Enhance impact on teaching; Allow for collaboration; Improve access outside
• The geographic and institutional boundaries of collections nominated for digitisation are wider – this study was aimed at the higher education institutions in the UK, but 14% of the nominated collections were from institutions outside of the higher education sector, and 6% were from overseas (see p. 27)
• The complementarity of collections is strongly favoured by both users’ communities (see section 5)
• The criteria for digitisation nominated by intermediary and end users include general criteria but also a number of criteria where metrics can be applied; thus allowing to establish a ranking mechanism (see p. 45)

Recommendations

Based on the analysis of the data gathered, the following recommendations are made in three areas: collections and prioritisation framework; resource discovery; and use and impact of special collections:

Collections and prioritisation framework

The long list of collections should be harmonized and sustained into the future

The long list as it currently stands illustrates the feasibility of applying a user-driven framework as a component of prioritising digitisation. The list was created from five different data sources and could potentially be even more useful if the data were harmonized and further expanded. The maintenance of the list through a web service is one possible approach to develop the current static list into a sustainable dynamic resource.

The user-driven framework developed by the project can be seen as a tool to support a flexible approach to prioritising digitisation of Special Collections

Rather than applying the framework to the “long list” in order to generate one single 'short list' of prioritised collections, a flexible use of the framework is proposed. This would allow for the testing of multiple different hypotheses and could be supported by a specialised decision making tool which allowed for the selection of priority criteria and their application to the “long list” of collections.

A suitable infrastructure which would offer services for nomination of collections, discovery of collections and prioritising collections is not available currently

Such an infrastructure could implement recommendations 1 and 2 above in one common solution.

Resource discovery

A comprehensive collection description and finding utility is needed in the UK

The availability of multiple collection description services, portals, and inventories (such as Archive Hub, AIM25, Michael UK, SCONE) aids resource discovery, but in ad hoc fashion. These services are either not scalable or lack essential functionality and, therefore, what is now needed is an ad modum, cross-sectoral, UK-wide collection description resource and finding aid.

Granularity issues of collection description facilities need to be revisited

The above services describe collections at different levels of granularity and structure relationships between collections – in hierarchical or derivational ways. It is recommended that a standard approach to collection description be adopted where the relationships between a collection and its 'super-collections' and 'sub-collections' are clearly presented. This would support resource discovery. In addition, facilities to allow the creation of virtual collections, mash-ups or contextual groupings should be introduced. The appropriate model for doing this needs to be identified.

Metadata issues for collection level description need to be better addressed

It is commonly accepted that the key to resource discovery resides in the availability of high quality metadata. However, our research reveals that even elements such as the collection title are not unified across different electronic resources. A common collection description and discovery facility could address this issue in a systematic fashion.

Use and impact of special collections

A stronger connection should be established with the actual use of digitised resources in the wider context of research/learning/entertainment

The lack of clarity as to how the digitisation of collections might transform their use for teaching and research has contributed to the large amount of digitised materials currently fulfilling mainly a preservation function. Wider involvement with communities of end users prior to digitisation and a greater transparency as regards possible uses, such as within an institutional Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) or specialised Virtual Research Environment (VRE) would help increase the chances for a more intensive use of the digital resource. The identification and promotion of good practices on collaboration between VLEs/VREs and digitisation projects might boost future use of digitised content in research and teaching.

Information literacy related to resources presenting collections can be further enhanced

More work needs to be done in improving the skills of the end users in resource discovery and the subsequent use of digitised collections.

Further work can be done on the impact of 'to-be' digitised resources (qualitative and quantitative methods)

The project revealed a number of quantitative and qualitative measurements which represent facets of user demands. More detailed research into these to discover better ways to evaluate the impact of a resource nominated for digitisation would be beneficial.

This project has analysed a comprehensive range of end user digitisation priorities that are directly related to teaching and research. In doing so it has made considerable advances in identifying and understanding the actual digitisation needs of the scholarly community. It has done so with the aim of removing the element of guesswork and assumption hitherto inherent in our understanding of user requirements in this area. Additionally, its combination of intermediary and end user studies provides a richness of view points which highlight the many important and differing aspects related to the end user dimension in digitisation.

Report available electronically only

Email this page Bookmark & share this page