The cost of digitising the entire collections of Europe’s museums, archives and libraries has been estimated at £100 billion, according to a new report.

In a week that has seen Google launch its Art Project - which makes some of the world’s most famous pieces of art available online in super high resolution - a new report has estimated the cost of digitising Europe’s cultural heritage at €10bn per year over the next decade.

To put this figure into context, the research and development budget for the Joint Strike Fighter programme is estimated at €40.34 billion.

According to the report, produced by the Collections Trust on behalf of the European Commission, European libraries hold between 59 million and 95 million unique titles. European museums also contain more than 265 million manmade artefacts and 221 million natural artefacts. This equates to a total of approximately 486 million objects under their control.

It has also been estimated that the cost of preserving and providing access to this extensive amount of material over a ten-year period after digitisation would be up to €25 billion, provided that centralised repository infrastructure is made available for the purpose. In another recent report, the Comité des Sages, a reflection group on bringing Europe’s cultural heritage online, recommended that Europeana be this centralised repository.

Collections Trust CEO Nick Poole said: “European museums, archives and libraries contain some of the world’s richest collections of human art and achievement.

“Digitisation is one important way of opening these collections up so that everyone can enjoy and learn from them, but only if it can be done on an economically sustainable basis.

“For the first time, thanks to this research, we have a good idea of the overall level of the investment required, which will help us to inform policy at both a national and European level.”

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