Presentation introducing the Collections Trust's guidance on running successful digitisation projects in museums.

1. Digitisation & online collections
These slides online at
www.collectionstrust.org.uk/goingdigital
July 2014

2. Going Digital
• 3-year programme on computers in museums
• Launch event at Tyne & Wear in November
– Auditing IT in your museum
– Photography & scanning
– Digital copyright
– Digital Asset Management
– Putting collections online
– Developing mobile applications
– Funding digital work

3. Digitisation: A Simple Guide
• New free guide by Natasha Hutcheson for Collections Trust
• Available from beginning of August
– Deciding to digitise
– Deciding what to digitise
– Choosing a camera
– Choosing a scanner
– A basic digitisation setup
– Taking good photographs
– Budgeting for digitisation
– Glossary of terms

4. Deciding why to digitise
• There are many reasons why museums decide to digitise their
collections:
– To make the collection more accessible
– In response to a proven audience need
– To support the production of a new book or app
– To reduce handling of fragile originals
– As part of conservation work
– To provide content for an exhibition, school activity or outreach
– To support internal needs (such as inventory)

5. What is ‘Digitisation’?
• ‘Digitisation’ is a catch-all term that describes a range of
connected activities:
– Selecting material
– Choosing formats & resolutions
– Creating digital images/models
– Adding descriptive information (metadata)
– Storing digital images and information
– Supporting discovery and use
– Planning for long-term preservation

6. Project or process
• Digitisation can be done through one or more projects, or as
part of the ongoing process of Collections Management
• Most museums set out a Digitisation Plan or Digital Strategy
which sets a longer-term objective and then take an
opportunistic approach to how they get there
• It is vital to be clear how digitisation supports your museum’s
aims, from audience development to conservation.

7. User-centred planning
• Digitising things without knowing what (and who) they are for
results in content that is unsustainable and unloved.
• Always design your digitisation around the user:
– Who is the content for? (schools, specialists, researchers etc)
– What do they want to do and why? (user needs)
– How will they find and use the content?
– What do you want to enable them to do (or prevent them from doing)?
– What do you want them to get out of engaging with your content?

8. Choosing formats/resolutions
www.emms.org.uk

9. What’s your ‘use case’?
Content
Metadata
A bit A lot

10. What’s your ‘use case’?
Content
Metadata
A bit A lot
FUN!

11. What’s your ‘use case’?
Content
Metadata
A bit A lot
FUN!
RESEARCH

12. What’s your ‘use case’?
Content
Metadata
A bit A lot
FUN!
RESEARCH
Digitise relatively few things, but focus on quality,
richness, depth and interpretation – iconic or star
items, context, stories and supporting
information for educational use. Choose a license
that doesn’t undermine your association or ability
to control re-use or derivatives

13. What’s your ‘use case’?
Content
Metadata
A bit A lot
FUN!
RESEARCH
Aim for coverage – digitise as much as possible,
to a reasonable quality, and provide keywords to
support discovery and use. License openly for
distribution and re-use.

14. No magic solutions
• When it comes to digitisation, every museum really is different
– there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
• How you make use of digitisation depends on:
– Your Forward Plan
– Your capacity & enthusiasm
– Your collections & stories
– Your audience
– The particular kinds of use you want to encourage/support

15. A Digitisation Plan
• A Digitisation Plan should include:
– Strategy and aims (why are you digitising, who for?)
– Scope and content (what are you going to digitise?)
– Running your digitisation project or process:
• Technology
• Formats
• Workflow
• Storage
• Copyright
• Metadata
– Access & use
– Preservation

16. Making money from digitisation
• ‘Digitisation’ isn’t a revenue-stream
• There are three main models:
– Find a way of getting people to pay for your digital content
– Give your digital content to someone else to sell (eg. picture libraries)
– Make use of your digital content to funnel more people at your existing
business model (merchandising, retail, event hire, donations etc)
• Generally, it costs more to create your own picture library than
it does to push people at your existing revenue model.

17. Some other options
• Let the Wikipedians in!
• ‘Do a Rijksmuseum’
• Find a commercial partner to digitise & monetise for you
• Crowdsource it – let people photograph and share

18. Contact
@NickPoole1
@CollectionTrust
WC209 Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road
London SW7 5BD
www.collectionstrust.org.uk/goingdigital