Digitizing a Cultural Heritage - The Key Issue for Preservation and Electronic Publishing

This paper describes a realization approach to evaluate the best fitting service provider in the context of "The Digital Beethoven House" pilot project, involving the digitizing of a composer-referred collection of colored manuscripts and other sources at the Beethoven House Association (Germany). Practical hints for museums are provided on how to find the right scan service providers, how to do the digitizing of their museum's stock right, and how to receive useful output for the museum's Internet offer. The first section presents a methodology for finding the right scan service provider, including the following steps: (1) development of quality criteria for the whole digitization chain; (2) market analysis of scanning services and call for tender; (3) evaluation of the offers; (4) visits of the best qualified vendors; and (5) decision making. The second section describes quality criteria for digitizing paper related to the quality of scans, digital master, scan equipment, and experiences of the scanning service provider. The third section summarizes the most common publishing scenarios for managing digital documents, including digital library and Internet publishing, CD-ROM production, facsimiles and posters, and virtual reality. The fourth section highlights digitizing other media, including audio, video, and 3D objects. (Contains 19 references.) (MES) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Digitizing a Cultural Heritage The Key Issue for Preservation and Electronic Publishing PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY