The preservation of cultural heritage in the digital age increasingly relies on the use of advanced technologies, notably artificial intelligence (AI). As the volume of works to be digitized and preserved increases, it becomes crucial for institutions to find efficient ways of managing these collections, guaranteeing high fidelity of digitizations, and fully exploiting the data derived from these documents. AI opens up new perspectives in this field, offering solutions to automate, optimize and enrich heritage digitization processes. What are the concrete benefits of AI for heritage digitization? How can this technology meet the challenges facing the sector?
guaranteeing reliable, consistent image quality
One of the main challenges in the digitization of heritage documents is to ensure that digital images are as faithful as possible to the original works. AI plays a key role in improving scanner calibration, as AI systems can learn and adapt in real time to adjust scanner parameters according to the specific characteristics of each document, guaranteeing optimal image quality. What’s more, AI reduces human error with automatic quality control algorithms that can detect anomalies in images, such as artifacts, blurring or inaccurate color, enabling automatic correction or rapid flagging for human review. Finally, AI ensures that images are standardized according to norms, as algorithms can verify that images produced comply with international standards such as FADGI (Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative), ISO19264 or METAMORPHOZE, guaranteeing consistent quality in line with institutional expectations.
automating repetitive and massive tasks
Large-scale digitization projects can be tedious and costly in terms of time and human resources. AI speeds up the digitization process by automating tasks such as document structure detection, page segmentation and image classification, saving considerable time. In addition, AI facilitates automatic metadata processing by extracting relevant information from each document and automatically generating metadata. This is essential for facilitating search, classification and access to documents in digital libraries.
text and pattern recognition (OCR & ICR)
AI can do much more than simply scan documents visually. Firstly, it improves OCR (Optical Character Recognition) by making text recognition tools increasingly accurate, even for older, handwritten documents or those in non-standard fonts, enabling more reliable conversion of documents into usable text. What’s more, thanks to deep learning algorithms, AI can identify illustrations, symbols, watermarks or annotations in documents, providing levels of detail unattainable with traditional methods.
improving accessibility and distribution
Artificial intelligence not only improves the digitization process for heritage works, it also plays a crucial role in content accessibility and dissemination. Using speech recognition tools, AI can convert audio recordings into text, making this data easily searchable and indexable. At the same time, speech synthesis transforms digitized texts into audio files, facilitating access for the visually impaired and making document consultation more inclusive. In addition, AI generates automatic descriptions of images, improving navigation and the integration of documents in search systems. It also improves recognition of complex handwriting, making documents that have historically been difficult to analyze usable. By generating enriched metadata and enabling a more refined search, AI facilitates rapid access to relevant information. It also offers the possibility of automatically summarizing documents, enabling researchers and librarians to efficiently navigate vast collections. In addition, AI offers high-quality automatic translations for documents written in old or less common languages, while facilitating intelligent indexing and personalized recommendations. Finally, it contributes to the design of dynamic digital libraries that evolve according to user preferences, enhancing the experience of consulting digitized works.
predictive and preventive conservation
Finally, a very promising area for AI in heritage digitization concerns preventive conservation. AI can detect early signs of degradation on digitized works and provide recommendations for their physical preservation. What’s more, it can simulate optimal conservation conditions for works, taking into account factors such as light, humidity and temperature, thus extending the lifespan of physical documents.
Artificial intelligence is emerging as an essential tool for meeting the challenges posed by the digitization of cultural heritage. From optimizing image quality and automating processes, to intelligent content recognition and work preservation, AI is transforming the way heritage institutions manage and enhance their collections. However, the adoption of these technologies must be accompanied by reflection on the ethical and transparency issues involved in their use. For libraries, archives and other heritage custodians, investing in AI represents a unique opportunity to protect and disseminate cultural heritage more widely around the world.