If You Build It, They Will Scan: Oxford University’s Exploration of Community Collections

In 2009 the University of Oxford ran a groundbreaking digitization project focused on getting members of the public to digitally capture, submit, catalogue, and assign usage rights to material they personally held to do with the First World War. The results demonstrated the potential of this approach to save money compared with traditional digitization projects. It also revealed that community collections could capture a wealth of hitherto undiscovered material held in private hands. More...