I’m inundated with preparing requests for proposals (RFPS) this week and had come across this Looker Dashboard I made in 2024! It’s a snapshot of a 2020-21 survey on the costs to digitize still images in cultural heritage.
The costs to digitize still images involve a lot more than just money. It’s staffing, equipment, time, and more. I remember the underlying data collection pre-dated my involvement, but analyzing/visualizing it was a lot of fun. We needed to normalize the data and questions so it made sense to readers.
This data is still relevant today.
Some of my favorite data points:
- Digitization is funded primarily (43.1%) by “other” means and not dedicated budget line (13.3%) or dedicated budget line plus grants (9%).
- Involvement with outsourcing still image/object digitization was a mixed bag with 66 respondants saying “no” and 58 saying “yes, and I am involved with it.”
- Most institutions have 1-2 fulltime staff primarily working on digitization.
You can explore the data for yourself: https://datastudio.google.com/reporting/bcaf57b3-8365-455b-829a-e56e4de58a89