Developing a statistical framework for measuring the digitisation of Europes cultural heritage

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Developing a statistical framework for measuring
the digitisation of Europes cultural heritage

• Numeric ?
• Phillip Ramsdale
• The study was conducted for the European
  Commission by the
• Chartered Institute of Public Finance and
  Accountancy

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Numeric WHY? Long-term goals

• better identify the total European digitisation
  effort and progress
• stimulate further digitisation by demonstrating
  the current progress
• better inform stakeholders that have an interest
  or direct involvement in digitisation policies
  and funding.

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Study objectives

• Statistics were intended to develop indicators
  for
• digitisation costs, investments and funding
  sources
• volume and growth of digitised resources, related
  to the analogue collections held by institutions
• the characteristics of digitised outputs,
  including their formats and user access.

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Study phasing
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Cultural heritageA jumble of definitions!
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What objects are digitised?

• Collective memory of print books, journals,
  newspapers, for example
• Images held by any institution
• Museum objects
• Archival documents
• Audio-visual materials, such as films and
  broadcasts

Granularity becomes coarser as the classification
is summarised.
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The Design

• Since no primary data existed for all domains, it
  was necessary to collect data directly from
  individual institutions.
• Identify the appropriate institutions from which
  to collect the data.
• Use a Standard questionnaire so that consistent
  definitions could be followed in each country.

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The Method put simply

• Identify those institutions holding collections
  that represent the significant part of the
  nations potential digital heritage.
• Survey a sample of these.
• Use the survey results to infer the overall scale
  of digitisation activity and expenditure to all
  other relevant institutions.

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The Process

• Establish the number of institutions in each
  country. (All types / domains)
• Identify the Relevant institutions.
• Draw a representative sample.
• Introduce the survey questionnaire.
• Chase the response.
• Check the responders data.
• Scrutinise the survey results.
• Review and refine method for the future.

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The National approaches provided for
translations of the questionnaire into

• Czech
• Dutch
• English
• Estonian
• French
• German
• Hungarian

• Latvian
• Lithuanian
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Romanian
• Slovenian
• Spanish

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Designing the TARGET
Archives, Broadcasters, Film Institutes, Museums,
Libraries, Heritage Agencies
ALL INSTITUTIONS
SAMPLE
Digitisation of collections will significantly
enhance access to the country's cultural heritage
RELEVANT INSTITUTIONS
1,539 gt ¼ of relevant
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The Relevant institution

• Institutions possessing collections that would
  be of significant value to the digitised
  heritage of the nation.
• At what point does Significant become
  Insignificant?
• The guidance spelt out some examples, but assumed
  National Co-ordinators would be better placed to
  decide.

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Response aligned with distribution of institutions
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Interpretation

• Weighting flexing the results to eliminate bias
  arising from the pattern of response.
• Summary statistics choosing the appropriate
  measure to describe all institutions that are so
  diverse in their purpose.

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Choice of statistical measures
Example of cost distribution for digitising text
combining images on the same page
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with on-line catalogues
Range of error for 90 confidence
Survey errors
All
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Sources of data
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A few words word about quality

• More than X of responders reported on
• 90 institutional staff possession of
  digitisation plans.
• 80 digitisation staff on-line catalogues
  undertakers of digitisation access policies to
  digitised materials.
• 70 institutional budget sources of funding for
  digitisation progress towards digitisation.

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A few more words about quality

• More than X of responders reported on
• 60 digitisation budget availability of
  digitised material on the internet.
• Less than X of responders reported on
• 40 number of users accessing digitised
  materials.

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Statistics summarised cover

• budgets
• staff time
• formal plans
• funding sources
• contractors
• progress

• formats
• unit costs
• access policies
• internet availability
• cost of plans

• analysis by type of institution, and
• type of materials held in collections

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Problem definitions

• User access to digitised materials
• Archive records
• Museum digitisation (catalogues / materials)
• Newspapers
• Monuments

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Relevant institutions

• Archives Government documentation / records
  offices.
• Museums Collections of national importance.
• Libraries National, University founded before
  1900, Public libraries acting as the main
  reference centre for regions containing at least
  5 of population. i.e. Wider than CENL.
• Audio-visual - Members of ACE / FIAF and National
  Broadcaster.
• Significant others!

?
?
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Summary issues (1)

• Clarify the definition of Relevant institutions
• Encourage universal approaches to measuring the
  analogue collections
• Develop incentives to respond to surveys
• Concentrate the questionnaire on hard facts,
  and ...
• Streamline the questionnaire

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The measures 7 Questions

• Inputs
• Cost in previous 12 months
• Staff devoted to digitisation projects
• Cost of planned digitisation 12/ months
• Outputs
• Digitised pages / hours / etc last year
• Same assumed in plans
• Outcomes
• On/off-line user visits in previous 12 months
• Proportion of such visits that were Free

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Summary issues (2)

• National planning returns to encourage the
  collection of data
• Provide a checklist of digitisation processes
• Review definitions
• Respect the considerable differences between
  domains, but consistently cover them all

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Summary Main points

• Short questionnaire for high-level national
  summaries Benchmarking for more specific
  investigations.
• Address the definition of Relevant
  institutions.
• Review the use of the statistics on a regular
  basis.