Collaboration in digitisation programmes for cost efficiencies and equitable access

Abstract

Over the past quarter-century, massive digitisation programmes have reenergised research, giving rise to new areas of studies, collectively known as the digital humanities. The large swathes of digitised content have an even broader impact as they are used in machine learning and artificial intelligence. The rapid transformation of content, dominated by collaborative programmes among for-profit and nonprofit organisations, have accelerated deep-rooted challenges related to copyright, silos and equity. Programmes such as the National Digital Newspaper Program, the Global Press Archive CRL Alliance and Reveal Digital provide positive examples to be evaluated, improved and replicated in future collaborative digitisation programmes. This paper presents an overview of the digitisation landscape and notes key challenges that exacerbate inequities. Case studies are presented to highlight a few programmes with unique models worth iterating. The paper concludes with recommendations of potential opportunities to model and the impact they may have to make for a more equitable digitisation landscape that will help focus efforts on more diverse content supporting underrepresented communities.