IASA 2019 Annual Conference

Worldwide, the threat of “degralescence” - a menacing combination of degradation and obsolescence - is pushing institutions holding legacy media archives towards a hazy yet inevitable deadline for a decision on how to safeguard their valuable assets for future generations. For quite a while now, high quality digitization of carrier-based media has been the key to achieve this goal. Approaching the endeavor of digitizing an entire archive, institutions meet challenges like the choice of right equipment, allocation of personnel and its training, methods of handling problematic carriers or financing of the project, among others. A seemingly overwhelming task – but is it, really? The presenter aims to shed a spotlight on a selection of successful inhouse digitization facilities all around the globe; and specifically, on how the application of principles of industrial manufacturing processes enabled them to increase efficiency of their projects concerning cost as well as production output.