CPA/CLR Inventory--Digital Collections Inventory

Council on Library Resources
Commission on Preservation and Access

Digital Collections Inventory Report

CPA/CLR Inventory

In July 1995 the Commission on Preservation and Access and the Council on Library Resources undertook a joint project to determine how much digitizing of library collections was planned, underway, or completed. The object of the survey was to show which collections/subjects were available for on line use, as well as to highlight where there was little or no conversion activity. In addition, the project was intended to gather sufficient data to ascertain whether an on line index or guide to digital conversion projects would be either useful or practical.

Because the time frame for the study was quite limited, it was impossible to be comprehensive. But time was not the only restriction. Given the rate at which projects are announced, launched (and sometimes tabled), a complete study would be seriously out of date before it left the desktop printer. In fact, a significant percentage of the projects cited in previous studies have yet to materialize.¹ Similarly, some that were successfully launched and held great promise (like the JANUS project at the Columbia University Law Libraries) were unsuccessful due to technical or financial problems. In addition, many of the digital collections that do exist are not widely available (via the Internet), either because of local technical limitations or copyright issues.

As for the survey's methodology, it evolved as the exercise took shape along the way. It started with a brief questionnaire which was circulated via several listservs, as well as to a number of individuals who were known to be involved in various digital conversion activities. The questions were brief and to the point:

1. Which of your [library or archive] collections have been scanned [or digitized]?
2. Did the project include the entire collection, or simply a portion of it? (If a portion, how much?)
3. Under what subject would you classify each of the scanned collections (or, perhaps more appropriately: can you categorize each of the scanned collections by subject)?

The questionnaire yielded approximately 40 responses.

The questionnaire was a useful instrument, but as it turned out, the most productive data gathering resulted from following leads from one knowledgeable person to another, interspersed with World Wide Web expeditions on the Internet. As is frequently the case with most investigations in and of cyberspace, serendipity played a major role.

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