Cultural Heritage Digitization: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to identify the challenges and opportunities of cultural heritage digitization in Ethiopia. In order to conduct the study, structured questionnaire data collection technique was used, besides both purposive and convenience sampling techniques were employed. In line with the relevant data were collected from digital librarians, archivists, tourists and tourism professionals. The findings of this study showed that lack of policy, plan and procedures, inadequate funds, lack of concern from higher officials, and lack of digital technology materials for cultural heritage digitization were identified as the major challenges. The study also identified the major opportunities of cultural heritage digitization such as, enhancing accessibility, preserving and promoting cultural heritage materials. Therefore in order to develop a successful cultural heritage digitization, the government should develop policy, plan, standards, and guidelines. In addition to this, increase the allocation of funds, higher officials should give attention for the digitization of cultural heritage materials, and appropriate digital technologies are needed.

Status and practices of digitisation in Kuwaiti academic libraries

“…This descriptive study highlighted digitisation status and practices in Kuwaiti academic libraries. As in the case of other empirical works on this topic in Library and Information Science (LIS) research (Adane, Chekole, and Gedamu 2019;Lampert and Vaughan 2009;Lopatin 2010;Nneji 2018;Rafiq, Ameen and Jabeen 2018), it employed a survey method and used questionnaire to collect data. The questionnaire was helpful as the target sample was scattered across different geographical locations.…”

Financial Sustainability of Digitizing Cultural Heritage: The International Platform Europeana

“…A strong body of literature on the digitization of cultural heritage has emphasized its benefits in terms of the preservation, enhancement, and accessibility of cultural heritage as previously described, but it has also highlighted the high costs of digitization for cultural organizations and the potential threats to their financial unsustainability. Digitization costs could be related to equipment and technology, since cultural organizations need to invest in specialized equipment and technology for digitization, such as high-resolution scanners, cameras, digitization software, storage devices, and computer systems capable of handling large amounts of data (Pandey and Kumar 2020;Adane et al 2019). These technological investments can be quite significant and not feasible for small-and medium-sized cultural organizations, especially those relying on public funding.…”

MP-DGCNN for the Semantic Segmentation of Chinese Ancient Building Point Clouds

“…Suffering from weathering, fires and rotting, a mass of Chinese historical buildings with wooden structural frame has disappeared. The digital archiving was the important measurement for the protection of historical buildings [3,4] and 3D point cloud which can provide the extract spatial geometry of built heritage with a complex shape has been widely used in the documentation of Chinese ancient architectures [5]. However, the captured original point cloud lacked the structured information, such as semantics and hierarchy between parts, which disturbed the usage of point cloud in other application fields [6][7][8].…”