Introduction

Librarians are advised not to think of digital as an exception: the creation and management of digital collections are now business as usual for most services. Digital issues are therefore covered as they arise: find them via this book's index. We already discussed the preservation and history of digital objects. This chapter discusses some further aspects of digital collecting which do merit separate consideration.

This chapter concentrates on the management of digitization and digital files, rather than on technical and systems concerns, on the assumption that most libraries will have IT experts on their staff. For those who need it, guidance on the technical side can be found in ‘Further reading’.

Managing digitization

Digitization can be defined as the representation of an analogue original in a digital format (i.e. binary code). This process is also known as digitizing and, sometimes, digitalization (though this term is usually used to describe the computerization of social life or technologies). Digitized objects, unlike born-digital ones, therefore have an analogue counterpart.

From the perspective of many users, the act of image capture or ‘scanning it in’ is a simple one; why therefore are more collections not available in digital form? From the perspective of the library, however, image capture itself involves a range of choices, and is only one facet of ‘digitization’ as a management process.

Why digitize?

Digitizing collections can bring many benefits: