Primary Research Group has published: The International Survey of Library & 
Museum Digitization Projects,  ISBN 1-57440-105-X. The study presents data 
from more than 100 library & museum digitization programs from academic, 
public and special libraries and museums in the United States, Canada, 
Australia, Italy, the UK and other countries. The mean annual budget for the 
digitization projects that contributed to the sample was $122,408, with a 
range from $0 to $1.963 million.  The reports presents data on sources of 
funding, the outlook for raising money for additional projects, collaboration 
within and outside of institutions, staffing of digitization projects, spending on 
hardware and software, practices on rights, permissions and copyright 
clearance, outsourcing, staff training, impact of digitization on preservation 
mediums, cataloging issues, marketing of digitization projects and other 
aspects of library and museum digitization project management. Data is broken 
out by size and type of digitization project and by size and type of institution. 
Data is presented separately for text, photograph, audio, and film/video 
intensive projects. 

Just of few of the report’s many findings are that:

More than 60% of the funding for the projects in the sample is derived from 
the library budget itself.  For U.S. libraries, close to 64% of funds for 
digitization projects comes from the library budget.

A shade more than 20% of the organizations in the sample believe that the 
outlook for raising money for digitization projects from outside sources is not 
favorable, while more than 43% characterize it as “not too bad,” more than 
32% call it “pretty good” and more than 4% characterize it as excellent.

More than 53% of the organizations in the sample have teamed up with 
another department or faculty of the organization to work jointly on a 
digitization project.

The institutions in the sample had a mean of 4.43 individuals who spent at 
least part of their working day on digitization projects, with a maximum of 20.

The organizations in the sample spent a mean of $21,839 on equipment to 
copy, duplicate, record, photograph, scan or transform content of any kind 
into digital formats.  Median spending was only $3,000 and the range was $0-
$330,000.

The mean number of hours spent obtaining rights permissions or copyright 
clearance of the organizations in the sample was 221.04.  

Nearly 49% of the organizations in the sample outsource some form of 
digitization, in whole or in part, to an outside party.  Museums were more likely 
than other organizations to do this kind of outsourcing; more than 61% of the 
museums in the sample outsource some form of digitization to an outside 
party. Projects that were photograph-intensive were also more likely to 
describe themselves as being deficient in mastering digitization skills; more 
than 31% of the organizations in this category said they had a great deal to 
learn, while another 25% said that they had gotten better but still had a long 
way to go.  

More than 61% of the organizations in the sample had some form of digital 
asset management software.  52% had their own in-house system, while 
another 9.2% share a system with other departments or divisions of their 
organization.

44.68% of the organizations in the sample said that digitization had had no 
impact on their use of microfilming or other preservation mediums.  

The mean percentage of total labor time required for digitization projects that 
is accounted for by cataloging and metadata tasks is about 37%, with a range 
of zero to 85%.  

Only 8.16% of the organizations in the sample had completely outsourced a 
digitization project to another organization such as a major museum or 
university that specializes in such projects.  

17.7% of the organizations in the sample license or rent use of any aspect of 
their digital collection to outside parties.  

For further information view our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.