Monitoring digitisation: lessons from previous experiences

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate current approaches to assessing digitisation activities in memory institutions. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative and quantitative analysis of digitisation surveys were performed. Analysis concentrated on several themes: general methodological solutions, digitisation objectives, users and usage of digitised content, budgeting and costs of digitisation, and volume and growth of digitised collections. Findings – Analysis revealed an absence of sound methodology solutions, issues of constructing a sample, the split between strategic and resource management approaches to digitisation, low visibility of user related evaluation criteria, and problems in developing quantitative measures. Research limitations/implications – Approaches to evaluating digitisation are not restricted to digitisation surveys and to provide a more comprehensive analysis these should be complemented by other data (e.g. interviews of digitisation experts). The identification of surveys was limited by subjective factors such as knowledge of national experts, visibility of reports on the web, and language of publication. Practical implications – The paper assists in the development of digitisation surveys by highlighting previous gaps and achievements. Originality/value – The paper is a first attempt to comprehend approaches to monitoring digitisation internationally. Gaps and issues identified in the research can guide studies on developing indicators and measures for specific digitisation activities.