Dear all,
Europe’s cultural institutions face a massive task in digitising their collections, according to a definitive new ENUMERATE survey. It shows that although more than three-quarters of them have a digital collection, or are involved in digitisation, only 34% have a written digitisation strategy and just 31% have a policy on use of their digital collections.
The ENUMERATE Survey Report on Digitisation in European Cultural Heritage was carried out in early 2012 by the ENUMERATE Thematic Network. It attracted almost 2,000 responses and was conducted with the assistance of national coordinators in 29 European countries.
It asked about the state of an institution’s activity, access to its digital collections, digital preservation strategy, and expenditure on digitisation. Key findings show about 20% of all collections, that need to be, are digitised. Art museums are the most digitised with 42%, but national libraries have only 4% of their collections digitised against a target of 62%.
Among national libraries, 40% of respondents stated there is no national digital preservation strategy, compared with 13% for all institutions. However, by 2014 institutions estimate they will make twice as much of their collections accessible through Europeana compared to today.
On average 3.3% of paid staff in all cultural heritage institutions work full time on digitisation while in national libraries on average 15 staff are involved in the digitisation process. In other types of institutions the “digitisation team” is limited to on average to about 5.5 staff.
Institutions spend around €20,000 to €40,000 on digitisation except audio-visual institutions, which have a digitisation expenditure of €103,000 per FTE (full time equivalent). Funding from internal budgets is a source of funding for 87% of the institutions, while public grants or subsidies are mentioned by 40% of them.
This report is the first in a series of three to be published in the lifetime of the ENUMERATE project. Later this year there will be an in-depth “thematic” survey followed by a further update next year. It is intended ENUMERATE will continue its work beyond 2014.
The report can be downloaded from: www.enumerate.eu/en/statistics.
Funding for the project is from the European Commission under the ICT Policy Support Programme part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme.
Further information and Press enquiries
Nick Poole, Chief Executive, Collections Trust. Tel 0207 942 6080 e-mail: [log in to unmask]
John Woolley, Development Director, Collections Trust. Tel: 0207 942 6084, e-mail [log in to unmask].
Collections Trust
The Collections Trust is an independent UK-based organisation working with museums, libraries, galleries and archives worldwide to improve the management of their Collections. Its mission is to help museums, galleries, libraries and archives unlock the potential in their collections.
It does this for the collections community by providing know-how, developing and promoting excellence, challenging existing practices, pioneering new ideas, and bringing experts together.
The Collections Trust is also an independent registered charity. It receives funding from various national partners including Arts Council England and the national organisations in Scotland and Wales
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Gordon McKenna
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