Monday, February 28, 2005

The 2004 METRO Digitization Survey Final Report

The Metropolitan New York Library Council has released its 2004 METRO Digitization Survey Final Report. The announcements states that:

In September-October 2004, an online survey was conducted among members of the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) to determine their activities and needs in digitization, and their plans for future digitization projects. The main objectives of the study were to determine digitization practices in the past two years; education and information needs in digitization; and digitization planning for the next two years.

The Executive Summary notes that:

The results of the 2004 METRO Digitization Survey show some interesting trends. While a number of barriers to digitization are mentioned -- funding being most frequently cited -- many institutions responded that their projects were funded by internal budget lines. This is a very positive trend for sustainability of institutional digitization projects, and differs greatly from many other state, regional, and national trends which show digitization efforts primarily funded by grants. Another strong area of institutional self-reliance was the production of digital works by in-house staff and equipment at a majority of responding institutions.

The three most common materials digitized over the previous two years were photographs, bound books and manuscripts.

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