Educating future digitizers

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed description of the Illinois Digitization Institute's Basics and Beyond digitization training program and to describe how successful the project's different training approaches have been. Design/methodology/approach The training consists of one‐day workshops, web‐based courses, and web‐based courses plus a hands‐on workshop element. Courses are given at different price points and for different lengths of time. Surveys and quizzes measure how well the participants learn the material. Findings As surveys, quiz results, and other data from the courses show, the objective of the project is being accomplished: to present cultural heritage institutions with different types of digitization training to suit their time constraints, budgets, and education needs and produce a new set of professionals who will create successful and long‐lasting digitization projects. Practical implications The success of the project shows that participants respond well to different training approaches and these different approaches can be implemented to provide cultural heritage institutions with a wide range of digitization learning options suited to their needs. Such methods can also be used for other types of library and non‐library training. Originality/value This is the first time asynchronous but instructor‐led web‐based courses have been used for digitization training, and findings indicate that it has been successful. The outcomes of this training can be useful for institutions interested in how well participants respond to this unique style of training.