A long-standing problem for digitisation programmes has been assessing demand. If you are digitising a resource with existing demand, it is reasonable to expect demand will only increase. But if digitisation provides access for the first time, or allows discovery through searching or scanning the resource much more quickly than in analogue form, there is no ready predictor of demand.
While demand is only one of the factors top consider for selecting content for digitisation, it can be an important one. At DigitalNZ, we've developed the Make it Digital Voting tool as a way for people to communicate their need for NZ digital content through informal votes, comments and conversation. New Zealand is a small nation, and we need to be creative about how to encourage digitisation and the creation of new digital content. Having a good understanding of what people actually want and why is a good start.
If your organisation has plans to digitise content, you can get feedback on your proposals by posting your digitisation plans. A suggested approach is:
If you do use these tools to support your digitisation planning, we'd love to hear about it. Drop us a note at advice@digitalnz.org.
Except where otherwise noted, the Make it Digital Guides are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License
.
Comments