We don't have the resources to "do a Google" and digitise all of a large
institution's archive - even if my wildest fantasies about our future
fundraising turn out to be true.
Neverthless I'd say there is a good case that we should support
digitisation. Obviously creating more open cultural content is a good thing
in itself. Further, more examples of how open content is used and re-used
will help demonstrate why an open publication model is better for the GLAM
sector than a commercial model.
I would tend to give preference to projects where;
- we are sure the material digitised will be well-used on the Wikimedia
projects (preferably by involving the community at an early stage)
- digitization is in the context of a broader outreach initiative rather
than a one-off.
- the material in question is important but might otherwise be overlooked
I'm not sure whether the getting volunteers to do the actual legwork of
digitisation is necessarily a good thing - it depends on the volunteer and
the item concerned - we could end up with some poor-quality scans and the
volunteer time might be better used on making sure the content is used.
Regards,
Chris