Costs for Digitization

Section 1: Factors Affecting Cost

• Constraints on handling materials

  Can the book be cut/disbound?

• Types of materials:

  Large format or regular

  Color, grayscale, or bitonal

  Paper type: thinner paper may require high quality scans and more image clean up in order for OCR to operate; extremely dusty/degraded paper may require additional preparations for staff/students handling (masks, gloves)

• Condition of materials

  Can they go through the highspeed scanner without damaging the scanner or ruining the pages/scanned images?

  Materials in worse shape require more image cleanup.

• Quantity of Materials

  Materials can more efficiently be handled in bulk, so piecemeal items require more time and work because of the shifting of work flows and priorities.

  Piecemeal materials that must be rushed exacerbate the problem.

Section 2: Overall Cost Breakdown

• Labor
• Equipment amortization

Section 3: Summary of Costs Based on 1989-1990 Brittle Books Survey

Link to prior survey.

The most recent brittle book survey was completed in 1989. Since then, more books have likely become brittle and more acquired books have been or become brittle. The 1989 survey showed that 20% of the collection was brittle, so the costs for a comprehensive brittle book policy would extend to 20% of the collection.

TheBrittle Books Survey (1989-1990) is on the local network, WSID 5467/C drive/Allfiles/BrittleBooks2.pdf. The file is too large to email or upload, but it is text searchable.

Recalculated for larger collection results...