Knowing how much your projects and programs will cost is both the most elusive and one of the most important elements of digital curation practice.  Costs arise around human resources and technical and physical infrastructure.

Take action

• Plan and budget for your digitization program
• Consider selection, preparation, metadata creation, preservation, digitization, quality control, technical infrastructure, and  continued maintenance

Watch

• Ayris, Paul.  "A New Digital Republic of Letters?"  YouTube video, 3:52, June 14, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rv1lHVQiw 

  Dr. Paul Ayris, University College London and Director and Acting Group Manager at UCL Library Service, President of LIBER, the Association of European Research Libraries, talks about digital preservation and how it can be made economically sustainable.

Read

• Velarde, Daniel, Daniel. (2013). Illusion and Achievement in Open-Access Digitization. Feliciter, 59 Issue, 37-39.

"The article looks at visionary ideas and achievements of open-access (OA) library digitization projects in Canada. According to the author, a national OA library faces barriers including copyright, a digital deficit and the need for a workable business model for reliable service delivery. The author describes Canadian academic Michael Geist's vision of a national OA library. The author notes that public funding is not a sustainable way to support OA."

• The LIFE Project.  "Lifecycle Information for E-literature: A Summary from the LIFE Project."  April 20, 2006.  http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/1855/1/LifeProjSummary.pdf

  The LIFE Project has developed a methodology to calculate the long-term costs and future requirements of the preservation of digital assets.  LIFE has achieved this by analysing and comparing three different digital collections and by applying a lifecycle approach to each.

• Ayris, Paul, Richard Davies, Rory McLeod, Rui Miao, Helen Shenton, and Paul Wheatley.  "The LIFE² Final Project Report.”  London: LIFE Project, August 2008.   http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/11758/1/11758.pdf

  The revised and more detailed LIFE Model has reduced ambiguity.  The costing templates, which were refined throughout the process of developing the Case Studies, ensure clear articulation of both working and cost figures, and facilitate comparative analysis between different lifecycles.

• Bonn, Maria.  "Benchmarking Conversion Costs: A Report from the Making of America IV Project."  RLGDigiNews 5 no. 5 (October 15, 2001).  http://webdoc.gwdg.de/edoc/aw/rlgdn/preserv/diginews/diginews5-5.html#feature2

  From February 1999 to February 2001, the University of Michigan University Library engaged in a large-scale digitization project entitled "The Making of America IV: The American Voice, 1850-1877," and this report recounts those efforts.

• Connaway, Lynn S. and Stephen R. Lawrence.  "Comparing Library Resource Allocations for the Paper and the Digital Library: An Exploratory Study."  DLib Magazine 9 no. 12 (December 2003).  doi: 10.1045/december2003-connaway.  http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december03/connaway/12connaway.html

  This exploratory study asked eleven Association of Research Libraries (ARL) librarians to identify the resources needed for the transition of an all-paper library to the all-digital library.  Although the results cannot be generalized, the study identifies functions and resources associated with the provision of paper and electronic materials that can be used for further investigation of library resource allocations.

• Puglia, Steve.  "The Costs of Digital Imaging Projects."  RLG DigiNews 3 no. 5 (October 1999). http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/links/cached/chapter3/link3.10b.digitalimagingcosts.html#feature

  Concludes that institutions will only be able to justify the maintenance of digital images that are used, institutions will need to perform a cost-benefit analysis to determine how much use is necessary, analog storage, such as keeping the originals or microfilm, offers greater longevity and less risk for long-term retention, and hybrid approaches, using each technology to its best advantage to minimize the disadvantages of the other, are likely to continue to be the most viable.

• NINCH Symposium: “The Price of Digitization: New Cost Models for Cultural and Educational Institutions.”  April 8, 2003.  http://www.ninch.org/forum/price.report.html

  This report from a digitization symposium sponsored by NINCH and Innodata includes the proceedings from the following presenters:
   
  THE CURRENT LANDSCAPE
  Donald Waters, The Economics of Digitizing Library And Other Cultural Materials: A Perspective from the Mellon Foundation.

   

  CASE STUDIES: CALCULATING PRODUCTION COSTS
  Maria Bonn, Economies of Scale: Lessons Learned from the Making of America IV Project.
  Nancy Harm, Luna Imaging: A Manufacturing Model
  Dan Pence, Ten Ways to Spend $100,000 on Digitization
  Peter B. Kaufman, Digitizing History: University Presses and Libraries

   

  PRESERVATION COSTS
  Stephen Chapman, Counting the Costs of Digital Preservation: Is Repository Storage Affordable?

   

  FROM PROJECTS TO FULL PROGRAMS: INSTITUTIONAL COST ISSUES
  Carrie Bickner, New York Public Library Visual Archives
  Tom Moritz, Toward Sustainability - Margin and Mission in the Natural History Setting
  Steven Puglia, Revisiting Costs
  Jane Sledge, Challenges in Storing Digital Images CHARGING THE CONSUMER
  Christie Stephenson, Expanding Local Programs Through Revenue Generation
  Kate Wittenberg, Sustainability Models for Online Scholarly Publishing

   

  THE ROAD AHEAD:
  Jack Abuhoff, A Final Word
  Michael Lesk, The Future is a Foreign Country

Read

• Center for Technology in Government. "Opening Gateways: A Practical Guide for Designing Electronic Records Access Programs," 2002.  http://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/guides/gateways/gateways.pdf
  

  See especially the cost estimation tool (pp. 29-26??) and the appendix.  -- document doesn't open (CB)

• RLG Worksheet for Estimating Digital Reformatting Costs.  http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/past/rlg/digimgtools/RLGWorksheet.pdf

  This worksheet is a guide to the preparation of a budget for activities involving digitization.  It can be used for in-house scanning projects or for those utilizing an outside vendor. The activities are organized in eleven steps.

• Beagrie, Neil, Julia Chruszcz, and Brian Lavoie.  "Keeping Research Data Safe: A Cost Model and Guidance for UK Universities."  April 2008.  http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/keepingresearchdatasafe0408.pdf

  This study has investigated the medium to long term costs to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of the preservation of research data and developed guidance to HEFCE and institutions on these issues.  It has provided an essential methodological foundation on research data costs for the forthcoming HEFCE-sponsored feasibility study for a UK Research Data Service.  It will also assist HEIs and funding bodies wishing to establish strategies and TRAC costings for longterm data management and archiving.

• Woodyard-Robinson, Deborah.  “Institutional Strategies – Costs and business modelling.”  Chap. 3.7 in Preservation Management of Digital Materials: The Handbook, 61-67.  http://www.dpconline.org/component/docman/doc_download/299-digital-preservation-handbook-digital-preservation-handbook?q=handbook -- link opens PDF file

  Considers costs, labour, object types and storage size, repository boundaries, preservation service level, and timing and provides business models.

• Nationaal Archief.  "Costs of Digital Preservation."  The Hague: Digital Preservation Testbed, May 2005.  http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/sites/default/files/docs/kennisbank/codpv1.pdf

  Testbed has studied the costs involved in the long term preservation of digital records, drawn up a list of indicators which exert an influence on the total cost of preservation, designed a computational model for the calculation of these costs, and compared the costs involved in the various methods for the creation of digital records and in the various preservation strategies.

• University College London and the British Library. “LIFE: Life Cycle Information for E-literature.”  [http://www.life.ac.uk/]

  should this be combined with the above entries in use cases? (CB)

• Chapman, Stephen.  "Counting the Costs of Digital Preservation: Is Repository Storage Affordable?"  Journal of Digital Information 4 no. 2 (May 2003).  http://journals.tdl.org/jodi/article/view/100/99

  Evaluates the fee structures of the Harvard University Library and the Online Computer Library Center, Inc.

• Sanett, Shelby.  "The Cost to Preserve Authentic Electronic Records in Perpetuity: Comparing Costs across Cost Models and Cost Frameworks."  April 3, 2003.  http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/sanett.ppt -- link opens PowerPoint file. 

  These slides explore issues related to cost modeling and propose a methodology that might be used to evaluate costing frameworks and models, which could then be adapted for use by libraries, archives, museums and other cultural heritage institutions.

• “Project to Programs: Mainstreaming Digital Imaging Initiatives.”  In Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging for Libraries and Archives, edited by Anne R. Kenney and Oya Reiger, 153-76.  Mountain View, CA: Research Library Group, 2000. 

  This book discusses selection strategies, digital image creation, quality control, image management, use of metadata, rights management, access control, and preservation.

Last updated on 09/26/13, 12:32 pm by emilykader