Research libraries call for unified approach to digitisation

Research Libraries UK is to formulate a strategy for digitisation to cover all of its member libraries.

In its National Digitisation Review, published on 11 December, RLUK notes the “surprising” absence of national digitisation strategies in the UK and Ireland, although it says that a number of digitisation strategies are in place at library and consortia levels.

The review outlines 10 challenges that RLUK will face in developing a national approach to digitisation. Some of these, such as the limits of technical expertise in the UK and the difficulty in establishing what the positive economic benefits might be, should be easily overcome, it says. Sufficient expertise exists in the UK, and the economic benefits—such as the reduction of duplicated effort and advantageous contracts with commercial digitisation companies—are multifarious.