The end is the beginning:the challenges of digital
resources post-digitisationPaola Marchionni, Programme Manager Digitisation
[email protected] @paolamarchionni
The end of a digitisation project marks the beginning of the public life
of a digital resource.
That’s why it’s important to plan for its sustainabilityas part of the development of the project.
But what is sustainability all about? What are the challenges?
2. Some facts & figures
1. A cautionary tale(with a happy ending)
3. Some good examples
1. A cautionary tale(with a happy ending)
the SALIDAA digital archive was created:
1. A cautionary tale (with a happy ending)
- Launched in 2004
- 1000s of images and text resources on literature, music,
visual and performing arts by UK-based South Asian artists
- Funded originally by the New Opportunities Fund
- Initial budget £250,000
- - Further grants post-2004
- Today physical archive at Brunel University
http://bit.ly/14exLxY
Once upon a time…
www.salidaa.org.uk
the SALIDAA digital archive url takes you to:
1. A cautionary tale (with a happy ending)
- In 2012 (?) SALIDAA ran into problems with its
developers who were also hosting the web site
- The developers held SALIDAA “at ransom” and
eventually took the web site down
- And with it went the url
- (The South Asian lawyers seemed to like not only
SALIDAA’s url but also its logo’s typeface)
Today
www.salidaa.org.uk
the SALIDAA digital archive survives on the VADS site (Visual Arts Data Service)
1. A cautionary tale (with a happy ending)
- As part of the digitisation project, SALIDAA deposited its
digital assets with VADS and could survive without a
dedicated web site
- SALIDAA has received HLF funding for new activities
and a web site
- SALIDAA on VADS is top of Google search results
- However, SALIDAA has little web presence or
“propagation”
Luckily
www.vads.ac.uk/collections/SALIDAA
- successful in top 10 results for very specific searches (eg South
Asian diaspora”) or artists with little web coverage (Samena Rana,
AWWC)- no results for other relevant but
wider searches (eg South Asian arts) or when artists have coverage
somewhere else on web
SALIDAA Google search results
- Existing links to www.salidaa.org.uk take you to the
South Asian lawyers site
- The current SALIDAA page on Brunel University web site does not
link to VADS!
SALIDAA hyperlinks
Unpacking sustainability
- SALIDAA could say “No” to
the developers because archive was on VADS.
- However, sustainability is not just about robust technical
infrastructure and digital preservation.
- It is also about ensuring a digital resource is kept current
and can easily be found and used.
Technical maintenance
IPR and licencing
Editorial currency
Discovery
Use and embedding
Measuring impact
Resources: financial, staffing, in-kind
Communication
2. Some facts and figures
Digitisation and post-digitisation context
The majority of UK Higher Education research libraries (RLUK members) have engaged in digitisation projects
• 97% of respondents to a recent RLUK-OCLC survey have completed at least one special collections digitisation project and/or have an active digitisation programme that includes special collections
• 40% can undertake projects only with special funding, while one-third have a recurring budget for digitisation
• More than 40% have licensing contracts with commercial vendors to digitise materials and sell access.
Digitisation and post-digitisation context
Special collections are recognised as strategically important to institutions
• “special collections and archives play a key role in differentiating each institution from its peers” (RLUK p15)
• “over 80% [of respondents] agreed that digitized special collections are critical to our current strategic direction” (ARL)
Digitisation and post-digitisation context
However, not much is known about users and how collections are being used
• Although overall use of special collections (not just digitised) by all types of users has increased, 90% of user “type” is not known (RLUK p16)
• Outreach and fundraising , among others, identified as biggest challenges and areas where staff are in need of training (RLUK p16)
• No established metrics for assessing user services (RLUK p16)
• Once collections have been digitised, little investment is made in understanding the needs of audiences: 43% of libraries gather analytics but far less conduct any qualitative research (ARL)
Digitisation and post-digitisation context
Sustainability of digitised collections still relies on fairly traditional models
• Many projects draw support from host institution typically for storage, preservation, access, but this is not budgeted or guaranteed (SCA-Ithaka p4)
• No much effort or budget goes towards enhancement of resources created (ARL p2)
• No much effort goes towards revenue generation activities (SCA-Ithaka p4) often seen in conflict with institutional/open mission (ARL p24)
• Revenue generation activities (eg content licencing or print on demand), gain only on average 21% of the total cost of maintaining the collection in the previous year, median only 10% (ARL p27)
Digitisation and post-digitisation context: useful publications• Survey of Special Collections and Archives in the United Kingdom and Ireland. http://bit.ly/11IjKHa RLUK-OCLC, 2013
• Sustaining our Digital Future: Institutional Strategies for Digital Content. http://bit.ly/11Ijrfr Jisc/SCA-Ithaka S+R, 2013
• Appraising our Digital Investment: Sustainability of Digitized Special Collections in ARL [Association of Research Libraries] http://bit.ly/11IjQOTIthaka S+R, 2013
More publications on sustainability and business models from Jisc/SCA at http://bit.ly/120ABEI
3. Some good examples
Vision of Britainhttp://www.visionofbritain.org.uk
- Very popular resource of historical maps and data - Not much institutional
support from Portsmouth University
- But a very dedicated academic champion
(can have its drawbacks)- Average 200k
visitors/month (not typical for academic web sites!)
- Revenue from GoogleAds Dec2012-May2013 over
£10,000- Successful because v large
user base and ‘findability’
Sustainability: revenues
Connected HistoriesManuscripts Online www.connectedhistories.orgwww.manuscriptsonline.org
- Aggregators of digital collections for
federated searches- Humanities Research Institute, Uni Sheffield
- Charging matrix: cost of adding and storing new data
- Successful because costs are transparent and small
(£1,000-4,000 per collection)- Costed to achieve surplus
- CH doubled number of collections added since
launch (22 total as of Jun`13)
Sustainability: revenues
Manufacturing Pastswww2.le.ac.uk/library/manufacturingpasts
- Digitised resources for teaching and learning British industrial past
- Uni of Leicester Library - Discovery based on open
technical and licensing approaches eg:
- CC-BY-NC content licence - CC0 metadata licence
- enabling re-use by aggregators such as Jorum,
Culture Grid, Europeana, Summon through API, OAI-
PMH and social media
- Collecting usage data
Sustainability: discovery
“Discovery” case study http://bit.ly/10i3Mpq
Social media-
Pre-Raphaelite Online Resource: links in Wikipedia to Home
page and deep links to other pages
- Wikipedia top referral site after direct access to site
- Manuscripts Online: Facebook is third top
referral after Google and direct access
- Bomb Sight: web site went viral after Twitter frenzy
and spiked at 360 visitors per minute
Sustainability: discovery
Toolkit for the Impact of Scholarly Digitised
Resourcesmicrosites.oii.ox.ac.uk/tidsr
- Resources, tools and case studies on how to measure
usage and impact - Popular ones:
webometrics (links analysis), analytics, citations, content analysis, referrers analysis)
- General principles:
view multiple sources of evidenceintegrate impact measure in
design of resource monitor regularly but don’t
become bogged down with itimpact takes a long time
Sustainability: impact
See also Measuring the Impact of Digital Resources, Simon Tanner http://bit.ly/12neaIP
Thank youPaola Marchionni
[email protected]@paolamarchionni
Image credit cover slide http://www.l2l-edu.com/2013/01/every-end-is-new-beginning.htmlSlide 10: http://moving.about.com/b/2007/03/14/are-you-tired-of-unpacking.htm
