Analysing Selection for Digitisation

Current practices and common incentives

Dr. Bart Ooghe

Heritage Consultant, Heritage Cell Waasland – Bart.Ooghe@interwaas.be

Formerly Researcher at Flemish Theatre Institute

Setting

• BOM-Vlaanderen carried out research into different aspects of digital curatorship and archivalisation

• This substudy: which choices are made when digitising analogue documents?

Why select?

• Selection, collection management and governance:

-Theoretically distinct from selection management processes

- In practice: significant overlap , end-users’ altered understanding and disappearance of borders

- Counter indications suggest individual institutions alone cannot make the necessary choices

-> Closer study of selection process relevant from governance perspective

Why select?

• Notions complicating selection practices:

- All-selective optimism contrasting with practical reality

- Multiple terminologies, approaches and guidelines – Europe in particular lags behind

- Restricted communication reflecting ,at times, ad hoc selection practices

-> Common set of criteria may aid practices and ease communication

Sifting and deducing

• 42 published surveys, guiding documents, project reports and best practice handbooks

• Individual LAM’s: wesbites, policy documents, personal communication

-> 98 LAM’s or digitisation initiatives, direct input from 13

• Sift through explicit selection criteria

• Deduce implicit criteria

• Divide amalgamated criteria

• Propose setting-independent terminology

6 Categories

• Institutional frameworks

- Collection policy- Purposes underlying digital collection- Collection design- Legal issues

6 Categories

• Institutional frameworks

• Value-related selection

- Content, completeness, clarity: instrinsic value- Use value- Accessibility and availability- Documentary contextual value- Affiliation- Representativity- Randomised- Aesthetics and visual appeal

6 Categories

• Institutional frameworks

• Value-related selection

• Physical criteria

- Physical accessability- Physical state- Quality after digitisation- Added value through manupulation

6 Categories

• Institutional frameworks

• Value-related selection

• Physical criteria

• Unicity and digital multiplicity

- Within the collection- Across collections- Digital substitution

6 Categories

• Institutional frameworks

• Value-related selection

• Physical criteria

• Unicity and digital multiplicity

• Metadata

6 Categories

• Institutional frameworks

• Value-related selection

• Physical criteria

• Unicity and digital multiplicity

• Metadata

• Financial frameworks

Relevance and benefits

• Making the valuation process more transparent and simplifying the workflow

- Defining most relevant criteria

- Attributing weight

- Formulate matrix

- Possible criteria-clusters

Relevance and benefits

• Making the valuation process more transparent and simplifying the workflow

• Improving communication

- Setting-independent terminology

- Common concerns clearly highlighted

- Complex nature of selection and necessity of cooperation highlighted

Relevance and benefits

• Making the valuation process more transparent and simplifying the workflow

• Improving communication

• Good governance and institutional responsibilities: to protect, preserve and promote public understanding of cultural heritage

Relevance and benefits

• Making the valuation process more transparent and simplifying the workflow

• Improving communication

• Good governance and institutional responsibilities: to protect, preserve and promote public understanding of cultural heritage

• Above all: We are still in a testing phase, adapting to the addition of the digital to the documentary lifecycle. Only through openness may trial-and-error lead to greater commonality in theory and accepted practice – this study, too, is but a test.