Article: Art Librarians Pay Widely Diverging Prices to Convert 35 mm Images of Artwork to Digital Formats

Of course, the press release gives no cost information, although it does talk about the number of images scanned and usage. Cost information must be in the full report.

In talking about the study, the press release says:

The new study from Primary Research Group is based on thorough interviews with leading art and image libraries, including those from Cornell University, Ohio State University, ARTstor, the National Archives & Records Administration, the Smithsonian, McGill University, the National Gallery of Canada, the University of North Carolina, the Illinois Institute of Technology and the Union Catalog Project for Art Image Metadata.

Art librarians are converting their 35 MM image libraries on a selective basis, as they re-shoot images, acquire new ones from commercial providers, enter into consortium sharing arrangements, and take other measures to digitize their collections.

The librarians interviewed discuss their digitization efforts commenting on the impact of the mega-library and emerging resource ARTstor, consortium activities, costs and benefits of in-house and outsourced image conversion, metadata development, copyright and licensing issues and other topics in art and image digital librarianship.

Read the full press release for details and a link for purchasing the full report.