The world is becoming increasingly digital and it is becoming easier to access information at any time via computers, mobile phones and tablets. This is changing the world we live in. The world of galleries, libraries, archives and museums should be at the forefront of this digital revolution, since they collectively have much of the content which people will want and need to access. However, many heritage institutions are currently being left behind in the digital revolution and are becoming less relevant as other web sites become predominant in searches, and the true and trusted sources of information remain in the “digital dark ages”.
Digital collections are becoming as important as the physical collections and we believe that all institutions should strive to become “Digital Institutions”. This means having access to digital resources, which will include digital information on the objects within the collections.
How ETHER Digital can help
- Develop a digitisation strategy
- Guide your digitisation projects
- Advice on collections audits
- Build digital repositories and databases
- Long-term digital preservation
- Digital sustainability plans
- Training in digitisation techniques
Your digitisation strategy will indicate what should be digitized and when. We recommend a combination of in-process digitisation (conducting during collection management processes), coupled with mass digitisation in accordance with well-defined selection and prioritisation criteria. Our work also involves support for digital repositories, using our ETHER Base collection management system.
In order to promote discovery of the objects, we also provide the publishing of metadata to national and international specialist search engines. This allows users searching on those search engines to discover your holdings, and thus will increase the relevance, and will move you out of the digital dark ages.