In this digital age we now have digital objects to collect alongside physical objects. Perhaps the type of digital object we are most familiar with is the electronic document which we create or receive and  store on our computers. Computers are widespread and collections of digital documents are commonplace. I have many among my 6 categories of document collections: Finance and Legal, Household, Healthcare, Writings, Personal, and PAWDOC. Another type of digital object that many people are familiar with is digital correspondence in emails and messages. Huge numbers of people maintain collections of these things on their computing devices or in remote cloud storage. My own Letters & Cards collection contain many such items; and, in another correspondence category, I have a collection of some 1500 email exchanges with my wife while I was undertaking a long commute with an early start. Another type of widely collected digital objects that I have is digital photos: this type of collection is now a universal phenomenon since the photos are both taken by, and stored on, digital phones.

All these collections of different types of digital object have a number of things in common: they all have file names of a similar structure, all contain standardised metadata, and can all be stored on the same device and be accessed in the same way; they can all be moved or copied to other digital devices; they can be sent to other people in emails or messages; they can be shared with other people in web sites and social media systems; and they are backed up using similar processes, and often to the same backup storage media. Such flexibility enables digital objects from different collections to be brought alongside one another and to be dealt with in the same way. While similar capabilities are available to physical objects (for example, by placing objects from different collections on the same shelf), digital technology provides a wider range of standard functions which are mostly easier and quicker to use than those in the physical world.

A second, key, feature of digital technology is that it can create digital copies of physical objects and bring them into the world of connected digital collections. The digital copies may not always be exact replicas of the real-world objects, though much depends on the type of object being digitised and the method of digitisation being used. Scans and photos provide excellent facsimiles of written material such as documents as I have discovered in the assembly of my PAWDOC collection of work files. However, for three dimensional objects such as the Sinclair ZX81 computer in my computer artefact collection, a single image provides only a partial view, and the multiple images that I have taken from different angles that are included in the collection, still don’t provide the real-world experience of viewing and handling an object in-the-flesh.

There are more expensive, and harder to use, 3D technologies which can give a more realistic impression but these are not widely used. Despite this, the digitisation of physical objects does enable such items to enjoy the flexibility and ease of use of digital functionality, and even enables physical collections to sit alongside or to be combined with digital collections. I have taken advantage of this and digitised the physical items in several of my collections including Paintings and drawings (87 objects), Doodles (about 160), Photos (about 5000 objects), Music (over 140 albums ripped from CDs) Mementos (about 1300 items), and Letters & Cards (over 1900 items). Note that all but the first two (Paintings and Photos) of these collections are hybrid collections with both physical originals AND digital originals.

At the extreme end of the practice of digitising physical objects, lies the very final action of destroying the physical object that has been digitised. This has the advantage of eliminating the need to store and look after the physical objects, and is often applied to physical document files. I did this to produce my Digitised Books collection (240 books scanned) specifically to save space (as well as wanting to explore the concept of an electronic bookshelf). Such physical collections then become true digital collections in their own right albeit with objects that are, in conceptual terms, neither physical, nor purely digital, but sitting in a class of their own.

In summary, digital technology has not only introduced a new type of object, but it has facilitated a connectedness between different digital collections; and it has enabled physical collections to enter the digital world and to also enjoy that connectedness.