"We cannot keep everything forever" : Value of the material as a selection criterion for digitization at Swedish humanities special libraries

Sammanfattning: The study examines the role of different types of value of the material in selecting documents for digitization at Swedish humanities special libraries. The main goals of the study were to find out, which types of value are most and least important in the selection process at these libraries, to aid on the identification of general tendencies in attributing values to analogue material for digitization and to provide an overall depiction of significance of different value types for the digitization at the humanities special libraries in Sweden. The two research questions of the study are: 1) Which aspects of value of the material are most important for the Swedish humanities special libraries in their decisions for selecting documents for digitization? and 2) Is there any agreement about the concept of value of the material for digitization among these special libraries? The empirical data has been gathered by means of an extensive self-completion questionnaire which was constructed on the basis of the analysis of previous research literature on selection of material for digitization. The analysis of the findings demonstrates that the intrinsic (intellectual content) value types and use value types are the most important ones for the Swedish humanities special libraries in selecting documents for digitization. Even though the respondent libraries appear to be in accordance in perceiving and assessing significance of many value categories, several of them generate discrepancies and confusion within the informant library group. Therefore, there isn't any general agreement about the concept of value of the material for digitization among the respondent libraries.