The digitisation of cultural heritage has had a transformative effect both on humanities research and on research and professional practice in the cultural heritage sector, even if the scale and nature of this impact is still at an early stage. As more of the world’s cultural heritage is born-digital, the questions posed by new digital archives and collections will bring complexity and new challenges, but also opportunities and commonality of method and approach across sectors.

This book is an accessible starting point for researchers, postgraduate students and cultural heritage professionals interested in the past, present and future of digital cultural heritage. It explores the multiple interpretations, contexts and uses of digital cultural heritage across four core thematic areas: access, use and reuse, value(s) and sustainability. These themes cut across the digitised and the born-digital and are central to the work of the institutions responsible for the management and dissemination of digital cultural heritage and the researchers and practitioners of all kinds who work with those digital materials.

Drawing on real case studies, resources and practical examples, this is an essential state-of-the-field overview of the concepts, initiatives, processes and emerging technologies that have shaped digital cultural heritage over the last decades as well as its future challenges and directions.