Cost of Inaction Calculator Featured in IASA Journal

AVPreserve President Chris Lacinak has published an article on our Cost of Inaction (COI) Calculator in the latest International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives Journal, “The Cost of Inaction: A New Model and Application for Quantifying the Financial and Intellectual Implications of Decisions Regarding Digitization of Physical Audiovisual Media Holdings”. We are at a crisis moment with physical audiovisual materials in which there is a severely limited window (and limited resources) to reformat and preserve historical collections. The COI Calculator is a free tool that helps organizations analyze the implications of varying levels of preservation action. COI adds a data point to ROI, or Return on Investment, and helps articulate what stands to be lost or gained in terms of access, intellect and finances based on different scenarios. This tool is not an argument to digitize everything, but rather to help decision makers make informed decisions that promote and enable progress and taking action. Chris’ article provides an overview through a sample case study of the why and how the COI Calculator can be used by an institution to plan and advocate.

We’re very proud to have been published by IASA in such an important professional journal and hope our new tool will help our colleagues around the world. A PDF of the article is available here or can be found along with our other resources on our Papers and Presentations page. Questions and feedback about the COI Calculator are welcome and can be directed to [email protected].