The Numeric Study aims to measure the progress of the digitisation of Europe’s cultural heritage

One of Europe’s key Information Society policy objectives is to make the content and digitally preserved materials of archives, museums and libraries more widely available. Across Europe these institutions are converting their ‘analogue’ collections into digital form thereby creating new opportunities for all interests to benefit from improved and convenient access to these resources. NUMERIC is a European Commission project that defines the empirical measures for digitisation activities and establishes the current investment in digitisation and the progress being made by Europe’s cultural institutions.

The study has tested a framework for collecting and analysing data relating to digitisation activities of materials held by libraries, archives and museums in the EU and is now implementing this with the help of nominated experts in each European Country. The deriving measures will relate to the costs to the institutions concerned, and the progress made towards both preserving and making their materials accessible on-line. Such statistics are required to:

• better identify the total European digitisation effort and progress;
• make international comparisons, between countries in the EU and EFTA, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, China and India;
• stimulate further digitisation by demonstrating the current progress;
• better inform stakeholders that have an interest or direct involvement in digitisation policies and funding (governments, statistical agencies, cultural institutions, academic and scientific institutions, publishers, industry).

The first year of the study (2007/8) was devoted to assessing previous research and gaining an emerging picture

An important step in the study was taken to establish appropriate and consistent definitions of ‘digitisation’ activities. This is a classic example of the problem of finding appropriate indicators that describe value rather than simply volume. There is such a diversity of materials to consider: books, journals, newspapers, photographs, monuments, antiquities, other objets d’art and documents, as well as the audio-visual materials of academic and scientific institutions, publishers, broadcasters, industry, libraries, museums and archives. A census approach is clearly impractical, and has not proved successful for previous researchers, so NUMERIC spent the first year of the study testing simpler statistical methods such as establishing the proportion of analogue materials (e.g. the physical documents) that have been digitised in a sample of institutions, in order to estimate the whole progress in Europe.

The International Standards Organisation (ISO) continues to develop consistent definitions in many areas, and there are some key performance indicators being set for collating digitisation activity in libraries (ISO 11620). These include electronic serials, e-books, content downloads from databases, simple internet sessions, and on-line catalogues. However, these are not suitable definitions in other institutions, (e.g. film archives) and in any event, it is necessary to define consistent measures for investment in digitisation activities and recurrent expenditure on servicing electronic access and services. As a result, a number of new definitions have been formulated which, if found practical, will provided tested standards for Eurostat and consideration by ISO.

Data sources such as the compendium produced by the European Institute for Comparative Cultural Research, and statistics published by Eurostat and UNESCO have helped the study to construct a foundation database upon which the universe of relevant cultural institutions undertaking digitisation work can be estimated. Further data is now being sought to improve the judgements that inform the study estimates. Inferences can be applied to the foundation database, based on sample survey results, to gain estimates of digitisation activity and associated expenditures across all cultural domains and countries. Then, the results can be verified by collaborators in the various Ministries and professional institutes in each country to modify and improve on the emerging picture.

The next steps (2008/9)

The research team are collaborating with nominated experts in each country to apply common survey standards and definitions which are also recognised as practical measures for managers of cultural institutions. A framework sample survey is planned to take place throughout Europe and the support of the professional bodies managing the institutions to be included in the surveys has been sought. The study wishes to engage the interest and cooperation of partners working on other projects across the cultural sector in Europe and beyond. It is intended to make use of procedures already in place, rather than set-up duplicate or parallel systems and networks.

The focus of the study is on Europe, but this will not prevent the researchers from including information about any country. If you believe that you have the experience and inclination to lend this study your advice and assistance, please contact: numeric@ipf.co.uk

Coverage

EU27 = European Union = Austria; Belgium; Bulgaria; Cyprus; Czech Republic; Denmark; Estonia; Finland; France; Germany; Greece; Hungary; Ireland; Italy; Latvia; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Malta; Netherlands; Poland; Portugal; Romania; Slovakia; Slovenia; Spain; Sweden; United Kingdom.

EFTA = Iceland; Norway; Switzerland; Liechtenstein.

Other Contextual Countries = Australia; Canada; China; India; USA.

EU Candidate States will be considered = Croatia; Macedonia; Turkey.