Digitisering

Digitisering is the process of converting information, records, or media from analog or physical form into a digital representation. It enables electronic storage, processing, and dissemination of content. Typical examples include scanning paper documents, photographing artwork, and converting audio or video tapes to digital files. Digitisering is a foundational step in making materials searchable, preservable, and interoperable across digital systems.

In practice, digitisering is often used interchangeably with digitization. Some contexts reserve digitization for the mechanical capture of data, while digitalization refers to broader changes in workflows enabled by digital technology, and digital transformation describes organizational change at scale. The distinctions vary by field and language.

Common processes include planning, material selection, high-quality capture, optical character recognition for text, and the creation of metadata to describe records. Digital assets are stored in repositories and managed with standards such as Dublin Core or METS/ALTO, with preservation formats like PDF/A or TIFF. Interoperability is supported by metadata schemas and protocols (OAI-PMH, file formats, versioning).

Benefits include improved access, enhanced searchability, long-term preservation, and efficient sharing. Challenges encompass initial costs, ensuring capture quality, metadata consistency, legal and copyright constraints, format obsolescence, cybersecurity, and the digital divide that affects access.

Digitisering is widely applied in libraries, archives, museums, government administration, science, and industry to preserve cultural heritage, streamline records management, and enable analytics and public access.