This may be outside my parameters, but I want to have a top-to-bottom feel for this.
Copyright restrictions – is there a legal reason why we would not be able to digitize our materials?
Increasing access – we want our materials to be more accessible for research and viewing
Scholarly research/input – ideally, curators, professors and scholars would contribute to ideas about what should be digitized
To raise the institutions’ profile – collections may receive more use if they are digitized and the ‘special gems’ of the collections would get wider recognition
To safeguard brittle or decaying originals from overuse – making a digitized copy available for use saves the original from extra wear and tear. More so if the digital copy is made from an existing copy, like microfilm.
To commit to digitization in principle – Not just digitization for digitization’s sake, but to raise the profile of digitiaton initiatives campus-wide. Fund-raisers should put it on their list. The folks that accept gifts should negotiate digital rights, instructors would perhaps incorporate digital materials into their courses, etc.
For preservation - Though there are serious questions about the long-term viability of digital copies as tools of presevation, there has been some promise shown when migration schedules are regulated and enforced.
Is the collection prepared to be digitized? – well organized and documented, in other words – This last seems to be the most problematic. The staff, time and consequent funds required to prepare a collection to be digitized can be prohibitive.
Some published resources for selection guidelines…
Janet Gertz, “Selection Guidelines for Preservation” updated .. http://www.nedcc.org/resources/leaflets/6Reformatting/06PreservationAndSelection.php
Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, “NDLP Project Planning Checklist” http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/prjplan.html
from Harvard… “Selection for Digitization: A Decision-Making Matrix” http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/hazen/matrix.html
