As this was the first time that a digitisation survey was tested across all EU member countries, it is not surprising that the results need interpretation and must be used with caution. The sample of ‘relevant’ cultural institutions for the survey was selected independently in every country, and though selection criteria had been defined by the project, they may have been interpreted differently.

The following problems were mentioned by participants or identified in the data analysis:

• The questionnaire is rather long and complex.

• The completion rates for specific questions differ. A number of questions could not be answered by the majority of participants.

• In spite of the definitions supplied with the survey, the interpretation of certain terms may have differed.

Nevertheless, NUMERIC has used the response data for an estimate of the present state of digitisation in Europe in order to get a first overview.

The majority of respondents were able to name their sources of funding for past digitisation projects. Across all institutions, digitisation was funded as shown in Table 3.

To some degree, libraries show a deviating picture. Digitisation programmes, donations and ‘other’ sources (e.g., revenue from commercial arrangements) seem to be somewhat more important for some library types, as shown in Table 4.

The questionnaire also asked whether the institutions have earmarked a special part of their budget for digitisation. Only 48% replied that they have such a digitisation budget, which — across all answering institutions — constitutes only a very small part of the general budget, namely 1.1%.

The survey asked for data on the median costs per unit in past digitisation projects as well as the calculated costs for currently planned digitisation projects. The second question is more relevant for estimating the costs of future digitisation, i.e., of the ‘remaining task’. In order to make the data for printed and manuscript materials to some degree comparable, units like ‘volumes’ or ‘metre of archival records’ were converted into ‘pages’. For the pages, unit costs were then calculated out of the projected resources for future projects (Table 5).

Costs calculated for audio and film material varied greatly between institutions and projects. Across all answering institutions, the following costs per unit were given:

• Audio: 30.00 € per hour

• Film: 55.20 € per hour

• Video: 34.29 € per hour

When calculating such averages, it is of course a problem that not only the types of material can vary, but also the processes and technology used and especially the labour costs in different countries. The survey tried to find out how much staff is engaged in digitisation and what costs this staff time (calculated in full-time equivalent) would represent. Most institutions could not answer this question. Nevertheless, these data will be necessary for calculating the total costs of digitising.

This question referred to all completed projects. Across all answering institutions, about one-third of the projects had been executed by external contractors and 62% as in-house work, the remainder by partner institutions. As to libraries, digitisation projects were carried out as shown in Table 6.

Previous studies had, for the most part, not dealt with the impact of digitisation projects on the population, namely the accessibility of the digitised items and the amount of actual use. NUMERIC asked questions about the accessibility of digitised materials via online catalogues and via the internet and for the institution’s access policy (free, restricted etc.). The following questions were asked:

• Does the institution possess an online catalogue for its collections, and are digitised items distinguished in this catalogue?

  Libraries have well developed online catalogues. In the responding higher education libraries for instance, 97.9% have an online catalogue, and 75.9% show the digitised items in the catalogue. Across all responding institutions, 67.4% have an online catalogue, of which 62.2% show the digitised materials.

• What proportion of the digitised material is publicly available on the internet? The proportion of digitised material available via the internet showed a median of 20% for all responding institutions, but differed considerably between the types of institutions. The responding libraries reported that a considerable part of their digitised collection is available on the internet (70%).

• What is the access policy of the institution? Does it offer free and unrestricted access to its digitised collections, or do restrictions apply such as payment or, e.g., only in-house access?

  About 50% of all responding institutions and 75% of the responding libraries allow free and unrestricted access. There may be restrictions for specified segments of the digitised collections.

The questionnaire asked for the number of user requests for digitised material, either online via the internet or offline, e.g., on CD-ROM inside the library. It was to be expected that the reported data would not give a reliable picture. Usage data for electronic resources are still a problem in all institutions, even for commercial publications in libraries about which vendors supply COUNTER-compatible[7] data. Therefore, the answers to this question were too inconsistent to be summed up. Especially as to online requests, the data indicated that single requests and longer ‘virtual user visits’ were not clearly separated. Though this first attempt at assessing the use of digitised material was not successful, usage data will be indispensable in future for showing the benefit of digitisation. Quantitative and qualitative data that could demonstrate benefits might be:

• The amount of use

• The types of users (e.g., researchers, teachers, specified groups)

• Projects based on digitised collections

• Research based on digital cultural heritage

• User opinions about benefits received by using the digitised collections.

The question what remains to be done and what this may cost is probably the crucial one for all funders of digitisation projects. The survey therefore asked three questions:

• What part of your analogue collections has already been digitised?

• What needs to be digitised?

• What does not need to be digitised?

‘Needs to be digitised’ refers to preservation needs and/or to the collection’s importance, justifying digitisation for better access by a larger clientele. ‘Does not need to be digitised’ refers to material that is insufficiently relevant for open access to a wider clientele. This concerns material that does not constitute important national cultural heritage, that is duplicated in other collections, or material that has already been or will be digitised by other institutions. The proportion of material that does not need to be digitised proved to be highest in libraries with their large collections of duplicate copies and lowest in museums where most objects are unique.

The percentages differ widely between types of institutions, but it is apparent that everywhere much remains to be done. Across all institutions, answers indicated that 19.3% of the collections have been digitised, that 30.2% do not need digitising and that 50.5% wait for digitisation. The percentages shown (Table 7) may have been compromised by varying interpretations of the term being ‘digitised’.

The survey also included a question as to the main purpose of digitisation, namely either preservation reasons or better access. But the answers showed that respondents did not differentiate between these two aspects.

NUMERIC ended in May 2009, but a number of possible measures have been proposed to further improve and utilise the results, and a working group will take up these issues. The main result of NUMERIC is certainly that data collection methods and statistics were developed and tested for assessing the state of digitisation in cultural institutions. Another important outcome of the project is that it has raised awareness of the importance of gathering data on digitisation.

The experience of the survey showed that there is still a need to refine and explain some terms and procedures. ISO will take up this issue in one of its committees.[8] Another important challenge is that the definition of ‘relevant institutions’ for cultural heritage should be refined and applied consistently in all countries.

Many participants in the survey suggested that it should be shortened. For a first survey it was probably necessary to try for a full view. A follow-up questionnaire might be restricted to those questions that seem best suited to show the input and output of digitisation in Europe. Yet, even a shorter survey should not be restricted to counting numbers and costs of digitisation, but should also try to assess the impact and outcome of the digital cultural heritage on individual users and society, especially on learning, research and cultural identity.