Digitization of library collections pays off in 50 years

    The British universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York have joined forces for the large-scale LIFE-SHARE project to explore various options for long-term document storage. Obviously, scanning books and storing them digitally is the most beneficial. But it is important to have numbers to prove this assumption.

    The study showed that the cost of digitization is high, but these costs pay off relatively quickly: after 50 years. In this case, the most beneficial option is a destructive scanning of books on their own. Over the span of 250 years, destructive scanning is about 4.5 times more profitable than storing paper originals.

    Here is a list of upfront costs, depending on the chosen strategy, taking into account the costs of paying staff.

    StrategyExpenses
    Regular storage£ 748
    Full save£ 8372
    Own destructive digitization£ 26,992
    Own Lean Digitization£ 78,656
    Digitization by order£ 101,673 (cheapest offer)
    (with preservation of material)£ 347,040 (most expensive offer)
    Digitization by order£ 106 111 (cheapest offer)
    (with loss of material)£ 351,478 (most expensive offer)

    At the first stage, it might seem that the most budgetary option would be to leave everything as it is - do not touch books on the shelves (normal storage). But in this case, after 50 years, the cost of storage and the salary of staff will exceed the cost of scanning, and indeed, with normal storage, books will not last long.

    If we compare the cost of each option for storing books for decades to come, then scanning seems to be the most acceptable option.


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