We don&#39;t have the resources to &quot;do a Google&quot; and digitise all of a large institution&#39;s archive - even if my wildest fantasies about our future fundraising turn out to be true.<div><br></div><div>Neverthless I&#39;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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I would tend to give preference to projects where;</div><div>- we are sure the material digitised will be well-used on the Wikimedia projects (preferably by involving the community at an early stage)</div>
<div>- digitization is in the context of a broader outreach initiative rather than a one-off.</div><div>- the material in question is important but might otherwise be overlooked</div><div><br></div><div>I&#39;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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Regards,</div><div><br></div><div>Chris</div>