BREAKING
DOWN
THE
COSTS
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h t t p : / / t e x a s h i s t o r y . u n t . e d u /
Breaking down the Costs —
what are your digitization projects
really costing?
Dreanna Belden
July 10, 2009
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what’s your philosophy?
• target vs. neiman’s approach
• perfection ≠ usefulness
• perceived value
• access = gold standardLegacies, Fall 2007
BREAKING
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preciousizing, and issues thereof. . .
• how valid are our determinations of low and high value of collections? what constitutes significance, and to whom?
• who is the audience? (are you sure?)
• uncorrected or corrected OCR?
• full or select transcriptions? XML markup?
• level of description?
BREAKING
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COSTS
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a tale of two collections . . .
Lorenzo de Zavala v.
Deaf Smith County
# of digital images 1093 3,662
page views 257,763 523,583
historical significance ? ?
time spent/record a LOT minimal
online since 2005 2006
cost of project $21,578 $18,581
cost/page $19.75 $5.07
cost/page view .0837 .0355
BREAKING
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* costs are based on the grant budget, and how real is that?
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a tale of two more collections . . .
Annexation of Texas Soil Surveys
# of digital images 5353 4823
page views 667,150 590,765
significance ? ?
time spent/record significant minimal
online since 2004 2006
total cost $47,187* $7,511**
cost/digital image $8.81 $1.56
cost/page view .0707 .0127
BREAKING
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* again, costs are based on the grant budget, and how accurate is it?** based on our internal pricing model
h cost benefit analysis graph
Figured as the value of page cost per view over time. The benefit being measured is usage. (cost per digital image in cents/page views per year).
COST PER
P A G E V I E W
BENEFIT: USAGE
BREAKING
DOWN
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COSTS
hinputs & statistics/year:
•permanent staff salaries
•student salaries
•$$: grants, donors, sponsored projects
•equipment costs
•storage
•overhead
•digital files/objects
BREAKING
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UNT Libraries Digital Collections
• 9,327 digital objects, over 740,000 digital images
• Electronic Theses and Dissertations
• Music Library
• College of Music Recordings/Programs
• Miniature Book Collections
• CRS Reports
• Federal News maps, WWI & WWII posters
• FCC Record
• A to Z with Gov Docs
what do we have? BREAKING
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UNT Libraries Digital Collections
. . . End-of-Term Harvest of the .gov domain
BREAKING
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h so what is it really costing us? B
REAKING
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COSTS
Inputs FY 06-07 FY 07-08 FY 08-09
FT Personnel salary* $276,763 $323,372 $406,113
FT Personnel fringe $89,576 $102,004 $123,385
Student wage & fringe* $38,469 $40,954 $38,816
Grants $93,750 $516,621 $385,310
Other invoiced work $9,221 $31,730 $49,609
Storage $4,000 $42,848 $22,500
Equipment purchases $25,259 $27,811 $26,328
Sub-totals $537,038 $1,085,340 $1,052,061
Overhead $84,613 $97,428 $117,528
Totals $621,651 $1,182,768 $1,169,589
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so what is it really costing us?
BREAKING
DOWN
THE
COSTS
Inputs FY 06-07 FY 07-08 FY 08-09
Total inputs $621,651 $1,182,768 $1,169,589
Total output: digital images 245,972 549,244 450,006
Cost/image $2.53 $2.15 $2.59
hBREAKING
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and how does that stack up to prices we have been charging?
photographs - $3.75negatives - $5.00glass plate negatives - $6.25large format maps, posters, panoramics, etc.•up to 30” - $33.50•up to 50” - $47.50newspapers from microfilm - $1.03/page