Van 'oud' geheugen naar digitaal brein: Massadigitalisering in praktijk

Edwin Klijn From ‘old’ memory to digital brain. Practice of Massa Digitizing

Digitization of Dutch cultural heritage collections is speeding up. Yet, still only a small portion of all analogue collections can be consulted online in digital format. Often digital collections remain hidden from use and cannot be searched through properly. Current research on user behaviour of students – important consumers for the future – shows that they mainly collect their information from the Internet. Non-digital collections disappear out of sight.

How can heritage institutes meet these changing circumstances? Foremost, more and higher quality digitization is required. Standardisation is an absolute necessity, to present the mate-rial consistently online, to connect to other collections and to preserve the digitized assets over time. Joint cooperation and coordination are crucial determinators in this process. In order to play an important role in the future, heritage institutions have to reinvent themselves. Authenticity, durability, quality and reliability are key factors that are becoming ever more important in the constantly growing digital domain. Exactly here heritage institutes can play a major role.