A Study of the Effect of Digitization On Collection Quality

Running Head: EFFECT OF DIGITIZATION ON COLLECTION QUALITY 1

A Study of the Effect of Digitization On Collection Quality: Research Proposal

Tiffanie Fisher, Anna Securda, Tiffany Phillips

LIS 5271, Florida State University

EFFECT OF DIGITIZATION ON COLLECTION QUALITY 2

Abstract

This paper explores the topic of digital libraries, created digitally through a conversion

process from print format into an electronic one. Research is conducted through

interviews and surveys with library guests and staff to determine potential growth or

possible harm caused by the process of digitization. Are there monetary benefits to

digitization? What other types of benefits are presented? Are the benefits significant

enough to outweigh any negative effects that occur? Does digitization increase or

decrease accessibility? How does it affect the quality of a collection? This particular

research project will focus on both qualitative and quantitative data collected from

libraries restricted to the state of Florida in order to answer these questions.

Keywords: digital conversion, digitization


A Study of the Effect of Digitization On Collection Quality: Research Proposal

As more libraries move into the modern era, they are pushed ever more heavily by

multiple factors to digitize current works or to purchase new collections that are already

in digital form. A primary cause of this pressure is due to budgetary concerns. Especially

given the recent downturn of the economy, private and public sectors alike are

experiencing budget cuts. According to College & Research Libraries News (2012),

“While 79% of special collections and archives surveyed by OCLC Research report

having collected born-digital materials, lack of funding, planning, and expertise were

cited as the largest impediments to their management and preservation” (p. 312). The

digitization push is also influenced by the need to increase accessibility to guests. Given

the advances of the Internet, guests expect information to be available quickly and easily,

but they also expect accuracy and variety of information. There are concerns, however,

that there will be consequences as yet unseen by this modernization. The negative

impacts are not fully understood.

Complete digitization of a library has the potential for either amazing

rejuvenation or catastrophic harm. If the research indicates that there is a significant

amount of money saved by digitizing collections, the freedom could allow libraries to

vastly improve the selections available to guests; however, if the cost savings is not

substantial enough to assist with budget constraints, or if the process negatively impacts

guests and they do not have access to the materials they want, there is a possibility that

they will leave and not return. Guests are the reason for a library’s existence. If there are

no guests utilizing the library, it ceases to operate.


The aim of this research is to acquire a better understanding of the benefits and

drawbacks of a digitization program in terms of effects on budget and how the digitized

collection affects the overall quality of the library collection. We will measure the quality

of the digital collection through analysis of quantitative data gleaned from library

records. We will acquire qualitative data through librarian interviews and patron surveys

to understand the attitudes toward digitization and perceived benefits and drawbacks. It is

hoped that this research will shed some light on the worthiness of implementing such a

program and how such a program can be improved to maximize the benefits.

There are several questions that this case study is attempting to answer. To begin,

are there monetary benefits to digitization? It is our hypothesis that after initial set-up

costs are factored, libraries do see an increase in budgetary savings. Also, what other

types of benefits are presented? Possibilities include ease of access to materials, increased

size of the library collection, or access to rare or fragile materials normally not available

to guests. Are the benefits significant enough to outweigh any negative effects that occur?

Does digitization increase or decrease accessibility? Some guests may feel alienated by

the introduction of new technology necessary to access the digital materials. How does it

affect the quality of a collection?

Upon completion of this study, information will have been gathered in order to

determine the full benefits, if any, to digitization of a library collection. Some possible

benefits include monetary savings, increased accessibility, and increased quantity of

materials. Due to the scope of the study being restricted to Florida, it is possible that the

data will not be sufficiently comprehensive in order to determine global benefits. In

future studies, the scope will be widened to include either libraries nation-wide or


national organizations that manage information. There are also potential problems

anticipated in regard to exhaustive user feedback. Some libraries may not be willing or

may not have the resources available in order to participate.

Literature Review

Digitization covers many interrelated areas such as collection management,

preservation, and usage of digital materials. These factors need to be taken into

consideration in order to determine how digitization affects the overall quality of a

library’s overall holdings. As Paul Conway asserts, “Spurred by Google’s book search

partnerships with publishers and libraries and the University of Michigan’s decision to

contribute its entire library of books and serials to the digitization effort, it is possible that

the majority of the published record held in the United States may exist in digital form

ten years from today” (Conway, 2010). Digitization efforts have broad-reaching

implications for public, research, academic, and other libraries, in terms of the user

experience, collection quality, costs, and maintenance. Our research seeks to understand

the quality of the digital collection from the perspective of both the librarian and the user.

Peter J. Astle and Adrienne Muir conducted a survey of 20 public libraries and

archives in the UK to study the relationship between access, selection, and preservation

of digital materials in 2002. Their study shows that, at that time, access to and

preservation of the physical collection were the main factors in selecting materials for the

digitization process. Other factors included public demand, copyright restrictions, and

budget. Due to these selection criteria, the majority of materials selected for digitization

were photographs and only one percent of a library’s total holdings were digitized. This

particular research is ten years old. It is possible that changes in technology and best


practices regarding digitization may result in different findings today.

Another UK study that focuses specifically on the effects of digitization on the

quality of photograph collections in historical libraries also found that access was the

primary determining factor on choosing what to digitize. However, it was determined in

this study that what ultimately affected the overall quality of the digital collection was

viewing digitization as a short-term project rather than an ongoing process (Davis-

Perkins, Butterworth, Curzon & Fields, 2005).

Another study by Lisa M. Covi and Melissa H. Cragin sought to examine the

discontinuity of electronic resources such as online databases and journals. Through a

cross examination of databases for three disciplines (Business, Library and Information

Science, and Communication), they found that electronic resource bundling lead to

“intermittent holes” and “unintentionally masked information” in the collection (Covi and

Cragin, 2003). That is to say, certain articles were missing or unavailable, while others

may be available online, but hidden due to being reorganized and placed in an area of the

site that makes it difficult to locate. The questions posed and answered by this study

could be applied to our research in a specific library’s digital collection.

A study of the UK higher education sector’s provisioning of digitization for

scholars found that desk research “revealed gaps in publicly available information on

availability of resources, details of planned projects and wish lists of institutions”

(Bultmann et al, 2006). Therefore the researchers also administered online surveys and

interviews to discover gaps, which is a process our team also consciously followed to

ensure a thorough research project. The study also asserted that without funding for

digitalization, the quality of the collection would suffer or indeed would not be possible.


“Like the survey respondents, interviewees commented that their institutions should be

digitized, but pointed out this could only be if further funding could be secured”

(Bultmann et al, 2006).

Face-to-face interviews of the staff of the National Library of Australia and four

state libraries were conducted to get an overview of their methods for handling digital

collections. Due to factors like lack of funding and difficulties with preserving born-

digital materials in the long term and trying to continually digitize analog materials, there

were only a small percentage of born-digital materials across the board. Also, there was a

tendency when faced with the choice between acquiring a digital or physical object for

the collection to choose the physical (Pymm & Lloyd, 2007). William Dougherty writes

about the concept of “digital decay,” an umbrella term for the perils of preserving born-

digital information (though this concept could encompass digitized items as well).

Problems with archiving and preserving information include neglect, corruption,

hardware failure or damage, and obsolescence. If digital items were not created with

preservation in mind (items such as floppy disks and CDs), Dougherty asserts, “the only

method for recovering digital artifacts…may be to use a forensic lab approach”

(Dougherty, 2009), providing another layer of complexity to digitization. Another article

pointed to other challenges of digitization such as handling the volume, complexity, and

interrelationships of and among materials (Karvonen, 2012). Thus the process of

digitization and preservation may be too daunting for libraries to undertake, with limited

budgets, staff, and time to devote to projects, one of the questions we will seek to

understand in our research.

In determining the benefits and disadvantages of digitizing materials it is useful to


understand how and why the digital materials are utilized. This is especially important to

academic libraries as more scholarly resources are put online. By examining how

undergraduate and graduate students use digital libraries in China, Liu and Luo found that

both groups are fairly similar in their usage. Both groups sited factors such as “remote

access,” “24-hr access,” and “faster access” among the most important factors identified

by both user groups (Liu & Luo, 2011). On the other hand, familiarity with search

engines like Google and difficulty using digital libraries were deterrents for

undergraduates. Graduates that opted not to use digital libraries cited lack of relevant

materials and access to archival or older publications (Liu & Luo, 2011). The tendency of

students toward using search engines like Google is supported by another study by

Brophy and Griffiths. A survey of students in the UK shows that 45% of students use

Google to initiate their research. It is sited also that the convenience and simplicity of the

site is what draws so many students to it (Brophy and Griffiths, 2005).

Another study of the use of e-resources was conducted in India amongst PhD,

MPhil students and postgraduate students to learn what resources were being used, how

and why they were used, and any problems that resulted from using those resources. It

was found that e-resources were utilized even more than expected with MPhil students

getting the most use out of them. Postgraduate students were found to have the most

problems, but held the second slot as the group that used e-resources the most

(Thanuskodi, 2011). It was determined by Monopoli, Nicholas, Georgiou, and Korfiati,

who studied the use of electronic journals in the University of Patras in Greece, that “a

Greek user of an e-journals service is more likely to be a male researcher or academic

staff member aged 35 years old or under” (Monopoli et al, 2002).


In seeking understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of a digitization scheme,

it is useful to know how use of physical sources compares to that of digital sources. In

Liu’s study of use of print and electronic resources amongst graduate students in a

university we see that many consult digital resources first (about 51%) and that electronic

resources are used more frequently. However, graduate students also noted a tendency to

use physical collections to validate their electronic findings or to find older materials.

(Liu, 2006). A drawback of this study is that many of the survey’s respondents were

distance students, which could skew the likelihood of their using electronic resources.

In a survey of prominent undergraduate academic librarians, a study by Library

Journal concluded that many users “come complete with the confidence that they can

find anything that they ever want to know or need on the web” (TerHaar et al, 2000).

Such perspective could also affect our research findings. We plan to interview librarians

as well as survey users on the quality of digital collections, so we are prepared for a

discrepancy between librarians’ and users’ answers. Perhaps an unrealistic expectation in

terms of digital availability could temper users’ perception of quality.

Most libraries face a severe budget crunch, and in any circumstance, are in the

position to either argue for more funding, or face extinction. A report by Merrilee Proffitt

cites Taking Our Pulse: The OCLC Research Survey of Special Collections and Archives

in that 75 percent of respondents reported reduced budgets. At the same time, libraries are

facing “increased pressures to shape and implement new service areas, particularly

digitization of existing collections and management of ‘born digital’ materials, both of

which require substantial resources” (Proffitt, 2011). We ask the questions about funding

and budgets for digitization in our survey to directly understand the scope of our subjects’


goals and mission, and as one indicator as to the relative success of digitization.

However, we agree that indicators other than funds point to the success or failure—and

especially the quality—of a digital collection. As Christine M. Angel asserts in her article

on the gap analysis of the University of South Carolina’s digital collections, “In arguing

for more funding, it would be helpful to provide numbers such as how many people have

accessed particular collections. Quantifiable data such as this would provide the

department with some good ammunition when applying for grant funding” (Angel,

2011).

Methodology

Our study seeks to understand how the quality of a library’s digitized materials

affects the library’s overall collection as well as the benefits and drawbacks of digitizing

library holdings. We defined quality as the value of the information retained in the

collection after digitization. For the purposes of our study we define digitization as

physical or analog materials such as books, photographs, cassette tapes that are put

through a process to covert them to digital materials such as e-books, jpegs or PDF files

and mp3 files. We are excluding items that are born digital as these items do not go

through the process of digitization, but are originally created as a digital item.

Variables of Interest

The quality of these digitized items will be measured by the value of the

information in the digitized object, which is defined through the attributes of abundance,

accuracy, accessibility, and relevance. Therefore the abundance, accessibility, accuracy,

and relevance of the information in the digital object are what determine the quality of


the collection after digitization. These variables will be determined through quantitative

analysis of library records.

Abundance, or the number of items in a collection, is important as it relates to

quality—patrons and library collection managers might determine a library’s quality

based on not only the number of materials in a collection, but the ratio of print to digital

being as close to equal as possible. Therefore abundance would be measured in terms of

the number or ratio of print to digital materials. Accessibility will be measured in terms

of the number of formats available (for instance, digital, physical, audio, etc.). The

number of formats available for a single item is significant since digital collections are

more accessible to some patrons because of proximity to physical libraries, while for

others, physical collections are more accessible than digital because of a lack of computer

literacy or availability. Relevance would be determined by the demand for digital

material, as this helps determines which objects are selected for digitization. For a digital

collection to be relevant, it must be as in demand as its comparable physical collection.

Finally, accuracy will be measured in terms of how closely digitized materials retain the

integrity of the original work. Are parts of the material missing? Is it distorted in any way

because of type errors or missing sections due to copyright?

The direct benefits and drawbacks of digitizing materials will be measured

through qualitative data taken from online patron surveys and face-to-face interviews

with librarians involved in digitizing materials. A better understanding of what individual

gains and losses in using and digitizing materials will add further explanation to data

acquired in the quantitative analysis.


Research Design

In order to understand the quality of the digital collection as it relates to the

overall collection from the perspective of both the librarian and the user we will conduct

face-to-face interviews with librarians in charge of digitization at their libraries. In

addition an online survey will be disseminated for patrons with the permission of the

participating libraries, which will be chosen using stratified sampling. The records of the

participating libraries will also be analyzed. The resulting quantitative and qualitative

data will be categorized according to criteria abundance, accuracy, relevance,

accessibility, perceived benefit, perceived disadvantages. Comparing the results of the

interviews and surveys should tell us much about the value of the digitization project and

if there is a match in opinion about said value amongst patrons, who consume the digital

materials, and librarians who provide them.

Subjects for Study

The subjects of our study will be librarians and patrons. Each of our graduate

student researchers will interview five librarians each for a total of fifteen librarians. The

librarians will be chosen from a sampling frame of library with a digitization program.

The librarians interviewed will have to be part of the digitization process. The sample of

patrons will be taken from the libraries of the interviewed librarians. These patrons

should be anyone in the participating library that uses the library’s digital collection.

Since the both the librarians and patrons will be coming from the same libraries it

is imperative that the libraries are chosen carefully. So we will use stratified sampling to

find the appropriate libraries. To choose the appropriate subjects we will first determine

the number of libraries in the state of Florida that have an active digitization program.


Then we will stratify for region (north, central, south Florida) as each of these regions

have different population demographics. We can further stratify for urban, suburban and

country libraries. We chose this method to make the results of the patron survey

generalizable by ensuring a more balanced demographic of users.

Data Collection Procedures and Instruments

Qualitative data will be collected through interviewing and surveys. The fifteen

librarians will each be interviewed a total of three times, an interview and two follow-up

interviews, to determine what it is they do in regards to digitization and their views of the

digital collections and digitization in general using a structured interview. The

interviewers will be trained beforehand to prevent against influence of the interviewer as

much as possible and to ensure accurate data collection. Appendix A shows an early

sample of questions to be posed to librarians. Patron surveys will be made by the head

researcher using Qualtrics and will be disseminated when patrons check out a digital

object. It will state that the library is conducting the survey to collect patron opinion

about library collections. The surveys will be sent out in three waves that coincide with

the waves of librarian interviews to try to insulate against non-respondents. A larger pool

of respondents will mean a smaller margin of error in our results.

We felt for the purposes of this study that it would be better to conduct qualitative

interviews with the librarians who are a direct participant in the digitization process to

learn more about how the process works and why some materials are chosen over others.

We decided to give the online survey to patrons, because it would allow us to receive a

greater amount of responses about the overall quality of the library’s collection in general

and their digital holdings in particular through the lens of patron usage.


Limitations of the Proposed Research Methods

Patron response to the survey is not guaranteed and we have no way to determine

if a single patron takes the survey multiple times. Also, we may need to adjust for one

library having a much heavier response rate over the others if that situation arises. Since

the interviews are structured we will miss opportunities to discover other unforeseen

aspects of the study, as we would have with an unstructured interview procedure. In

addition, this study will only address digitized materials and does not account for the

costs, benefits or disadvantages of born digital materials. This area of research may be

addressed in a future study.

The study’s geographical limitation may make the findings less generalizable as

the results will give us a definite picture of digitization in the state of Florida. These

results may vary if the study is repeated in other states or communities. However,

provisions have been made to make the results as generalizable as possible.

Ethical Considerations

Patron surveys will be anonymous. No names will be used on the survey or

survey results. The surveys will be assigned numbers so that we could say patron 27

borrows a lot of e-books, for example, without any knowledge of which patron is number

27. Also participation in the survey is voluntary and will say so on the survey. There will

also be a portion of the survey explaining what we are researching and why. Librarian

interviews will be confidential and their names will be changed in the published findings.

Also the names of the libraries will be changed. The librarians participating in our study

will do so on a voluntary basis with full disclosure before we begin.


Data Analysis

The records relating to digitization will be scrutinized for patterns, specifically

regarding accuracy, accessibility, relevance and abundance variables as well as how these

attributes may translate into benefits or disadvantages such as lower/higher budget, and

lower/higher circulation rates. Librarian interviews will be compared and contrasted to

each other to determine patterns regarding methods of digitization and choosing materials

for the digitization process. We will also look at patron survey responses to find patterns

concerning how often the digital collection is utilized and what type of materials are

preferred among patrons as well as what they like and dislike about the digital collection.

The patron surveys will be codified by hand, looking for patterns related to the variables

mentioned in addition to computerized statistical analysis of the patron’s answers. After

computerized statistical analysis of the records and surveys are completed we will

compare and contrast the results against the librarian interviews, which will be codified

by hand, to get a better concept of the overall quality of the collections.

Management Plan

Schedule of Activities

Our project activities mainly consist of surveys, interviews and analysis of the

survey and interview findings as well as quantitative data from library digitatization

project records over the course of 2 years. This 2 year period includes the dissemination

of our findings, which will be discussed in more detail in a subsequent section “Plans for

Dissemination of Findings”.


The first six months, January through June 2013, will consist of preparation

activities. For Susan Wilson, who is the head researcher on the project, this will mean

procuring equipment such as computers and software licenses, for the team as well as

finding the research sites for carrying out interviews and surveys. Ms. Wilson will also

design the survey and aid in developing the interview questions. The graduate student

assistants will help Ms. Wilson with locating the research sites and designing survey

questions. Their primary responsibility will be designing the interview questions with the

help of the head researcher, and conducting the interviews. While the head researcher is

procuring the necessary equipment in January, the graduate assistants will undergo initial

training for their interviews, which will be refined the following few months with the

help of Ms. Wilson.

From July through February 2014, the team will distribute surveys and conduct

interviews at five different libraries each for a total of fifteen libraries. The graduate

student assistants will be responsible for conducting the face-to-face interviews and

analyzing the results. They will also disseminate the surveys for patrons to these libraries;

however, Ms. Wilson will be in charge of analyzing the survey findings. The head

researcher will also be submitting progress reports on the team’s behalf during this

period. The Gantt chart of our complete schedule can be found on the following page.

b. Plan for Dissemination of Findings

The research team will be disseminating their findings at library conferences in

2014. For each trip Ms. Wilson will be accompanied by one of the graduate research

assistants. They will be visiting the conference for the Public Library Association, the

American Library Association and the American Society for Information Science &


Technology as we feel these groups will be the most interested in our findings. We will

also develop a web site describing our project, methodology and findings. Ms. Wilson

will also be disseminating our results to several publications including D-Lib magazine,

an online publication whose focus is digital library research, The American Library

Association’s magazine American Libraries and Library Journal.

c. Chart of Schedule of Activities


Budget

Justification

Senior/Key Personnel

Susan Wilson, Researcher II, (50%)

Susan Wilson will be in charge of the study in a supervisory role. She will help to

develop the online survey for patrons and interview questions for the librarians and

analyze the qualitative and quantitative data that is collected, overlooking the work of the

graduate assistants.

Tiffany Phillips, Graduate Research Assistant 1, (75%)

Tiffany Phillips is a graduate student at FSU. Under the supervision of Susan Wilson will

be conducting interviews of 5 librarians at five different public libraries within the state

of Florida. She will also help to develop online questionnaire for the survey and assist

with codifying the data collected.

Anna Johnson, Graduate Research Assistant 2, (75%)

Anna Johnson is a graduate student at FSU. She will be performing the same duties as

Tiffany Phillips and conducting interviews of another 5 librarians at five different public

libraries in Florida, which will be a different set from that of Tiffany’s set.

Tiffanie Fisher, Graduate Research Assistant 3, (75%)

Tiffanie Fisher is a graduate student at FSU. She will be performing the same duties as

Tiffany Phillips and Anna Johnson and conducting interviews of her own set of 5

librarians at five different libraries in Florida.

Travel


Research Site Visits For Interviews: 45 trips at $250 per trip = $11,250 total to conduct

interviews with librarians. Each graduate student researcher will interview five librarians

three times each for a pre-interview, interview and follow-up interview. Therefore, there

will be fifteen interviews per interviewer.

Research Conference Travel: 6 conference trips at $1000 each = $6,000

Study team members will share research findings at three conferences. Ms.Wilson will

accompany one research assistant to each of the three conferences allowing each research

assistant the chance to share the findings at a conference. They will be visiting

conferences for the Public Library Association, ALA and ASSIS&T.

Equipment

Personal computer: 3 X $1250 = $3,750

The study team will use the 3 personal computers to design and disseminate the online

survey as well as to analyze the findings of the online survey and the qualitative data

from the interviews.

Digital Recorders: 3 X $49.50 = $149

The three graduate research assistants will each use a digital recorder to record their

interviews with the librarians.

Software

SPSS Statistical Software licenses: 3 X $37 = $111 per year.

The SPSS Statistical Software licenses are supplied at a discount through FSU. The SPSS

will aid the study team in analyzing the results of the survey.

Survey Program: Free


The study team will use Qualtrics to design and conduct the online survey to patrons at

no cost. The cost of the Qualtrics program is covered under overhead charges.

Budget Charts


Conclusion

The impact of the Internet age has touched every modern organization and even

our daily lives. Libraries have a unique obligation to provide its patrons with the services

they need at little or no cost. However, providing this service comes at a cost to the

library itself. The demand for digital materials has only increased as library funding has

decreased. This study proposes to take a more in depth look at how digitizing physical

materials into digital materials affects the library’s collection, the librarians and the

patrons through a focused look at quantitative and qualitative data. Through this research,

it is hoped that the true benefit of such programs will be determined.


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Appendix A

This is an early sample survey for librarians that we developed. We have since decided to

conduct face-to-face interviews and have begun to adapt our interviews questions from

this survey.

Librarian Survey Regarding Digitizing Collections: Benefits and Potential Downsides



Documents

A Study of the Effect of Digitization On Collection Quality