Usefulness of measuring the Sample Clauses

Usefulness of measuring the cost of digitisation of cultural heritage After this short historical overview, the group was asked to comment on the usefulness of measuring the costs of “digital collections”. A few questions were formulated to structure the debate. What are the biggest benefits of having more precise information about costs of digitisation (and why not accept costs of digitisation as part of a wider budget)? The group identified several entities to which this kind of information would be useful, especially in relation to accountability: : the institution itself, the heritage domain, national governments, the European Commission and (other) funding agencies. Common for all entities is the benefit of an increased awareness of the importance of reliable cost estimates in a rapidly changing world: the heritage domain comes from a situation where local (physical) collections were maintained and extended for local audiences. The costs associated with that are fairly simple, at least in theory. With the digital, things get different. The creation of digital collections in a networked environment becomes a joint effort, irrespective of where the actual walls of museums, libraries and archives stand. Access to digital collections becomes global and so may be the audience. The costs associated with this change and are far from easy to specify. If we zoom in on the entities, there are several reasons why better data about costs and investments in digitisation are useful.