Abstract
With some five million collections items comprising art, film, photographs, sound, new media, writings and objects, the possibilities which digitization opens up for the Imperial War Museums (IWM) are only limited by the imagination: new ways of reaching and engaging with audiences, slicker commercial activities, online access to superbly restored film and photographic images. But without the financial clout of a Google-style business, and where systems and standards are still very much in development, heritage institutions struggle to bridge the gulf between aspiration and reality. Hiding behind the term digitization lies a mass of activities and responsibilities, all critical to its success. With several years of experience of digitizing anything from posters to motion picture film, and of capturing high-quality digital images of a range of objects from medals to missiles, IWM has now learnt, often the hard way, most of the lessons.