Advantages And Disadvantages Of Digitization

Introduction According to Witten and Bainbridge (2003), digitization is the process of taking traditional library materials, typically in the form of books and papers, and converting them to electronic form where they can be stored and manipulated by a computer. Another definition of digitization that was defined by Stuart D Lee (2001) is the conversion of an analogue signal or code into a digital signal or code. He once said “Digitization is a tool and not a purpose all in itself. Digitization is not solely about technology, but more importantly it is about successfully achieving information goals and needs”. There are two main reasons why most of museums, libraries and publisher digitized their collections. The first reason was to increase the number of the access. The difference when they digitized their collections is that many users can access the digital collections simultaneously rather that physical collections. Not only they

Challenges in digitization can come from various kinds of problems. The first challenge of the digitization process is staffs. According to James A. Macklin, staffs is the greatest limitation for digitization the materials and there is a steep learning curve for accuracy and speed of data entry. From that statement, staffs are the most important element in digitization process rather than other materials, machine and equipment, hardware and software. However, in order to ensure that the digitization process is going well, staffs with a good skills and knowledge about digitization are needed by the organization. Even if the staffs are lacking in skills, they can still be trained by their organization. The organization need to organize a training program for their staffs so that the process of digitization can run smoothly even though the organization may spend a lot of money in order to launch that training