Surveys

The first ENUMERATE core survey was carried out in 2012 with high level questions for monitoring the progress on digitisation of cultural heritage across Europe. In 2013 we did a so called Thematic Survey, for a deeper understanding of measuring the progress

The results of each ENUMERATE Survey are published in detail on the ENUMERATE Data Platform in the form of reports, anonymised data sets, questionnaires, benchmark and review of tools. If you would like to re-use results from the ENUMERATE project, please read our Copyright and IPR policy.

Core Survey 1, 2 and 3

The ENUMERATE Core Survey 1 questionnaires were online from February to March 2012. They were updated and repeated in October 2013 en in February 2015.

The Core Surveys focus on high level data on digitisation of cultural heritage in Europe in order to get an overview of the progress being made. Data are collected about:

digitisation activity
the cost of digital collections
access to digital collections
the preservation of digital heritage materials

The results were published in public reports:

The raw survey data are available at the ENUMERATE Data Platform.

Thematic Survey

The Thematic Survey took place to gather more significant data on digitisation of cultural heritage in Europe. There were three thematic surveys. They have been implemented in February to April 2013. At the heart of the ENUMERATE Thematic Surveys were the topics:

SIZE of digital collections
COST of digitisation
ACCESS AND USE of digital collections
DIGITAL PRESERVATION

The topic DIGITAL PRESERVATION however was excluded from the Thematic Survey following the recommendations from a specialist meeting considering a separate high level questionnaire on digital preservation as part of the Thematic Survey as too complex, too premature and therefore ineffective.

It would have been too complex to have replies to all questions, in all languages, from all institutions, all EU member states. Therefore it was decided to assign different institutions from different countries to the three topics.

Read the results of the Thematic Survey

SIZE

The purpose of the Thematic Survey on Size was to check and review the collected data in Core Survey 1 as well as to develop further the methodology of quantifying the size and growth of digital collections. During the Specialist Meeting in The Hague on 30 January 2012 recommendations were taken on board to improve questions regarding e.g. the collection size and composition based on the records in the Collection Management Systems or the detailed measuring of the three most important digital sub-collections.

COST

In the Thematic Survey on Costs, a method was developed in order to get more detailed information on the cost of digitisation than could be collected through the questions in Core Survey 1. A Specialist Meeting in London on 30 March 2012 was devoted to the cost of digitisation and it was suggested that a workflow approach - activity based costing - should be the basis for this survey.

ACCESS AND USE

The purpose of the Thematic Survey on Access/Use was to improve and specify the questions related to access, use and impact of digital collections. During the Specialist Meeting in Madrid on 6th June 2012 approaches were developed to monitor those questions.