Special collections in the spotlight: reports from OCLC/RLUK and Ithaka S+R
Two reports have recently been published as the outcome of surveys on special collections within research libraries in the UK and the US. Here are some highlights from the findings.
OCLC and RLUK’s Survey of Special Collections and Archives in the UK and Ireland grapples with many of the issues inherent in the management of special collections, ranging from human resources and skills, cataloguing and metadata, outreach, born-digital material and digitisation.
“Perceived pressure to digitise collections comprehensively seems to be ubiquitous” says the RLUK report, and “users expect everything in libraries and archives to be digitised.”
Ithaka S+R’s Appraising our Digital Investment: Sustainability of Digitized Special Collections in ARL Libraries takes up the story where the RLUK study leaves off, and concentrates specifically on the post-digitisation scenario and how academic research libraries are dealing with the sustainability of digitised special collections.
The two studies make an interesting read, as they are complementary in a number of ways:
1) Special collections are recognized as strategically important to institutions: the RLUK report highlights how special collections and archives “play a key role in differentiating each institution from its peers”. This is also echoed by Ithaka’s findings, “over 80% [of respondents] agreed that digitized special collections are critical to our current strategic direction”.
2) Users, however, are not that well served: while RLUK libraries have seen an increase in the number of users of special collections, not much is known about who these users are, which inhibits the potential for impact of those collections. In fact, the ability to do “outreach” activities is seen as one of the most challenging areas for libraries. Along the same lines, Ithaka’s report found that 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, although this is usually recognised as more useful than just monitoring web analytics.
3) Funding is still the main issue: only 20% of RLUK libraries have a recurring budget for digitisation, while 40% can undertake projects only with special funding, suggesting that while libraries may be able to fund small-scale activity internally, they often require external funding for large projects. On the other hand, the Ithaka study revealed that “Libraries are spending far more in creating new resources than in enhancing current ones”, a situation that is likely to be similar in the UK. So while it is difficult to find funding for large scale digitisation, it is equally problematic to identify support for enhancement and development of existing digital resources.
4) Sustainability of digitised collections still relies on fairly traditional models: the host institution is principally responsible for this. However, it is able to set aside only limited resources for enhancement and development. The Ithaka study confirms that when institutions engage in successful revenue generation activities (mainly through licencing of content or print on demand), the actual gain made is only on average 21% of the total cost of maintaining the collection in the previous year, and the median only 10%, so a very modest gain, possibly seen as not worth the hassle.
The RLUK study recommends a collective approach to digitisation and sustainability of digitised content which includes:
“…the development of a national strategy for continued digitisation of special collections … sustainable funding strategies and international partners with which to collaborate”, and the “development of cost-effective models for large-scale digitisation of special collections…”
What would this strategy look like? And what models could support it? A few days ago I came across Reveal Digital’s cost recovery=open access model, an approach to large scale digitisation of special collections based on participating libraries subscribing to a collection on a cost recovery basis. Once the cost of producing the digitsed collection has been covered, the collection is made available on open access. Definitely a model worth considering.
The Center for Research Libraries (CRL) has commissioned an independent assessment of the Reveal Digital model highlighting, however, some of the potential risks with this approach.
Reveal Digital is trialling its approach with Independent Voices, an archive of about 1m pages from journals and magazines of the independent press, and is inviting libraries to register their interest in subscribing to this collection over the next six months, so let’s watch this space.
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Innovation, innovation, innovation
The development of image matching functionality for the Bodleian Library’s Integrated Broadside Ballad Archive is one of those innovations which arise during a Jisc Programme. Often we do not make too much of these innovations. Perhaps we think that they are par for the course; a natural consequence of being involved in innovative programmes of work. Such an attitude can negate opportunities for enhancing impact far beyond the outputs of a project.
People tend not to be interested in tools, unless they are directly useful to the work in hand, or have been developed for very specific purposes, but tools, though practical, might also change our perceptions of the world or how we think about a particular practice. This is the change we seek when we foster innovation.
The Broadside Ballad project, working in collaboration with the Engineering Science Department of the University of Oxford, has developed something which could have profound effects on image research. Giles Bergel of the Faculty of English at the University of Oxford initially acted as Project Manager for the Ballads project. Here he, together with Andrew Zisserman and Relja Arandjelovic, presents the potential that Image Match offers for enhanced bibliographies and for new scholarship in the Arts and Humanities.
Of course developing a tool is only the first step, disseminating it for use is then requisite to allow take-up by others outside the institution where it originated, hopefully leading to onward development for new purposes. That is why an early version of the engine is already open-sourced here
The current programme will naturally lead to a number of innovations and these will be highlighted here over the next few months as two programme strands draw to a close and there is the final push of the mass digitisation projects to produce some very exiting digital resources.
The Integrated Broadside Ballad Archive will launch on 23 February at the English Folk and Dance Society (EFDS). More details can be found here.
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“Sustaining Our Digital Future: Institutional Strategies for Digital Content”
Today Jisc and Ithaka S+R are launching “Sustaining Our Digital Future: Institutional Strategies for Digital Content”, a new report aimed at helping digital projects to thrive.
This report, which provides a close look at three institutions (UCL, Imperial War Museums and the National Library of Wales) in the United Kingdom confirms:
• How fragmented the digital landscape is at universities and within other organizations
• How there are examples of good practice within and outside higher education that all can learn from but that greater co-ordination is required to deliver this at a UK level
• How little the topic of post-build sustainability comes up at the higher levels of administration
• How risk is present within the current system, concerning the sustainability of digital content.
“It’s a wakeup call for us all,” said Andrew Green, chief executive and librarian at the National Library of Wales. “It’s essential reading for anyone in the business of access to digital content.”
The report, complete with effective recommendations includes a Sustainability Health Check Tool for Digital Content Projects, which helps people to ascertain what tools or resources projects could use to be even more successful.
With funding from the Jisc-led Strategic Content Alliance (SCA) in the United Kingdom, the Canadian Heritage Information Network, and the National Endowment for the Humanities in the United States, Ithaka S+R is conducting a multi-year research program to shed light on common challenges associated with sustaining digital projects beyond implementation and provide guidance and tools to help administrators, project leaders, librarians, and funders ensure that projects continue to grow. This report is the first in the series.
For more on sustainability and related issues, go to the SCA blog.
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3D Scanning: three-dimensional artefacts from the past, for the future – part 4
Guest post from John Hindmarch, a PHD candidate at UCL’s Department of Engineering, reporting on 3D Scanning: Three-dimensional Artefacts from the Past, for the Future, held in Cambridge on 10 and 11 December 2012.
Every time I attend a conference – or any meeting of those involved with cultural heritage and scanning, I’m always impressed by the sheer variety of people involved and range of projects on view. The recent 3D Digitisation conference in Cambridge was no different: over the two days of the symposium we saw a diverse array of objects scanned and digitally reconstructed: a 16th cent