Evaluating and Measuring the Value, Use and Impact of Digital Collections

Citation

Manžuch, Z. (2013), "Evaluating and Measuring the Value, Use and Impact of Digital Collections", The Electronic Library, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 133-134. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471311299209

Digitisation is among those activities that are on the top of national and international priorities. As a result huge investments are put in to digitisation initiatives. Surprisingly, the issue of benefits and effects of digitisation on the target audiences of digital collections has been put aside for a long time. One reason for this might be an overwhelming belief in the intrinsic value of heritage collections, so a positive effect is considered a natural result of digitising valuable cultural and research resources.

In this book the authors address this missing topic in professional and academic discussion. It presents a set of papers offering an overview of practical experiences, examples and research related to the effects and benefits of digital collections to their users. The book is written both by academics and practitioners to allow for different perspectives on the subject. It is intended for a broad audience of researchers, staff of memory institutions and their major stakeholders.

The content of the book is organized into three parts. In the first part Digital transformations in libraries, museums and archives, changes brought by digitisation and their specific effects on memory institutions are discussed. The second part Understanding and measuring the use, impact and value of digital collections reveals diverse approaches to user research, value and impact of digital collections. Finally, the third part Enhancing the future impact and value of digital collections is focused on future perspectives on the value and impact of digital collections. Most papers with few exceptions are concentrated on scholarly digital collections, especially those valuable for humanities and social research. Each paper includes case studies and relevant examples that enrich reader's experience.

In this book the concepts of value and impact are vague and used implicitly rather than being clearly defined. In some papers the relation between user research, impact evaluation and value is not easily understood. In fact, evaluation of digital collections is a topic with a rich history of academic discussion. For instance, Saracevic (2000) has usefully distinguished different layers of digital library evaluation that encompass social, institutional, systems and other levels that might bring more clarity to discussion in the book.

Regretfully, with few exceptions the book is mostly oriented at the UK context, while missing important international initiatives. Recent influential EU projects NUMERIC and ENUMERATE aimed at developing the framework for monitoring digitisation progress in European memory institutions are not mentioned at all.

The great advantage of this publication is that it brings to light the important issue of evaluating the benefits and effects of digitisation. Value and impact are fundamental issues that allow us to seek an answer to whether digitisation encourages social and cultural change often associated with memory institutions.