Developing a statistical framework for measuring the digitisation of Europe’s cultural heritage

1. Developing a statistical framework for measuring the digitisation of Europe’s cultural heritage Numeric Phillip Ramsdale The study was conducted for the European Commission by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy

2. NumericWHY? 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.

3. 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.

4. Study phasing

5. Cultural heritage:A jumble of definitions!

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. The Method – put simply • Identify those institutions holding collections that represent the significant part of the nation’s 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.

9. 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.

10. Czech Dutch English Estonian French German Hungarian Latvian Lithuanian Polish Portuguese Romanian Slovenian Spanish The “National” approaches provided for translations of the questionnaire into:

11. 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 > ¼ of relevant

12. 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.

13. Response aligned with distribution of institutions

14. 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.

15. Choice of statistical measures Example of cost distribution for digitising text combining images on the same page

16. % with on-line catalogues Range of error for 90% confidence Survey errors All

17. Sources of data

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. 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

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

22. “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! ? ?

23. 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

24. 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”

25. 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

26. 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.