Outsourcing the digitisation of audio or video
When outsourcing the digitisation of audio or video, it is essential to consider benefits, risks, scope, quality requirements, and stakeholder interests.
Before contacting potential contractors
Before approaching contractors, identify the following points, which might be outlined in a business case for digitisation or outsourcing:
- the drivers and benefits of digitisation
- the risks identified
- the scope, volume, and type of material selected for digitisation
- the condition of the material and whether conservation or cleaning is required prior to digitisation
- the digital formats and quality required
- stakeholder interests
- the metadata and documentation required
- ownership, copyright, privacy, and digital rights management issues
- quality control and assurance parameters
- insurance requirements for rare or valuable materials
- financial and human resource issues, including roles/skills of staff in monitoring the process.
Before choosing the contractor
Contractors should be assessed carefully by considering these questions:
- can you manage the range of analogue formats we need to digitise?
- are you able to provide the required digital formats (including suitable archival formats)?
- do you have experience with these materials/formats, particularly unique materials?
- what are your transportation and materials handling procedures? Is there an option to digitise on-site for rare materials?
- can you provide the required metadata and documentation?
- what quality control measures do you have? Do you agree to our proposed monitoring process?
- can we inspect samples of past work and contact clients for feedback?
- what are the costs and timeframes involved, and are we protected from unexpected expenses or delays?
- what are your backup and disaster recovery arrangements?
Inclusions in the contract
The contract should specify the following:
- roles and responsibilities
- costs, timeframes, and expectations, including protections against exceeding costs or missing deadlines
- transportation and materials handling requirements to prevent damage to the originals
- the range, type, and quantity of material to be digitised
- required digital formats, including preservation masters and enhanced/access copies
- specifications regarding compression (should be lossless for archival records)
- additional specifications such as sampling and bit rate
- the contractor's quality control procedures and our monitoring process
- metadata and documentation requirements
- ownership of all materials (for example, ownership remains with the State)
- arrangements for returning analogue and digital recordings
- backup and disaster recovery arrangements.