Terras, M. (2007) Review of Lorna M. Hughes "Digitizing Collections. Strategic Issues for the Information Manager". Literary and Linguistic Computing 22:105-106. Digitizing Collections Strategic Issues for the Information Manager Lorna M. Hughes, 2004. Digital Futures Series (Eds Marilyn Deegan and Simon Tanner). Digitization, the conversion of an analogue artefact into a binary representation, is big business nowadays: most museums, archives, libraries, and the organizations Hughes terms as “Memory Institutions” are currently at some stage of making their collections available in digital form. Much has been written about digitization, and many standards have emerged from the experimental approach to creating digital representations of artefacts which accompanied the growth in Internet technologies and cheaper digital imaging equipment in the 1990s. However, “there is no one point of contact for up to the minute expertise and guidance on this topic” (p.233), and although many disparate organisations serve to provide advice on digitization (for example, the Technical Advisory Service for Images 1 , and the AHDS guides to good practice series 2 ) the many issues to be addressed can baffle staff new to the digitization process, or those in Memory Institutions whose responsibility it is to develop, manage, and budget for such projects. The aim of Hughes’ text is to provide an honest and necessary overview of the strategies and practical issues staff may encounter when involved with a project which aims to put digital collections of cultural materials online. In doing so, Hughes presents a useful and readable introduction to the business of digitization, weaving anecdotes and case studies with technical information and standards to animate which can otherwise be a lifeless topic. The book is split into two sections. Part One, Strategic Decision Making, provides an overview of the decisions that will precede a digitization initiative, such as the advantages (and disadvantages) of digitization, the impact such activity can have on collections, and the potential benefits which may arise from such a project. A full chapter addresses how selection policies can be developed within an institution, how collections can be assessed, and when it is more beneficial for the institution (or artefact) not to digitize. Legal issues, such as intellectual property, and copyright, are given the stress they deserve in another chapter, as are issues of project management, such as risk awareness and management, economic considerations, and issues of staffing and human resources. This section closes with an overview of institutional frameworks and management issues such as the benefits of collaboration. Part Two of the book, Digitizing Collections, covers many of the complex issues involved in the day to day running of a digitization project, such as developing (and keeping to) a project plan, finding funding for digitization projects, and project management, including issues regarding staff, technology, workflow, quality assurance, standards, metadata and the preservation and maintenance of digital data, as well as the reasons digitization projects can fail. Three chapters are then devoted to the digitization process itself. The first covers the digitization of rare and fragile materials, explaining the multitude of issues the project team have to contend with, 1 www.tasi.ac.uk/ 2 http://ahds.ac.uk/creating/guides/