With the passage of time, celluloid film degrades and valuable film history is lost, resulting in loss of cultural history which contributes to the shared sense of community, identify, and place at a local and national level. Despite the growth in digitised services for accessing cultural resources, to date no economic valuation has been performed on digital local history resources which are accessible online. Despite the recent emergence of online portals for digital cultural services in many countries (such as virtual tours of art galleries and digitisation of cultural archives) a shift which has accelerated in response to the Covid-19 epidemic, there remains a major literature gap around the value of digital culture. Failure to account for the value of digital archives risks sub-optimal allocation of resources to accessing and preserving these aspects of local cultural history. In response, we performed the first contingent valuation study to estimate willingness to pay for a free online film archive portal containing historical film footage for localities throughout the United Kingdom. Users were willing to pay an average hypothetical subscription for digital archive film services of £38.52/annum. Non-users in the general population were asked their willingness to pay a hypothetical annual donation to maintain free public access (£4.68/annum on average). The results suggest that positive social value is gained from online access to digital archive film, and from knowing that the cultural heritage continues to be digitally accessible by the public for current and future generations. We outline how this evidence aligns with a theoretical framework of use and non-use value for digital goods and services extending beyond those who currently use the portal, to those introduced to it, and those in the general public who have never directly experienced the online archive service. We also report what we believe is the first application of Subjective Wellbeing analysis to engagement with a digital cultural service. The advantage of applying methods from economics to value cultural activities in monetary terms is that it makes emerging modes of digital cultural goods and services commensurable with other costs and benefits as applied to cultural policy and investment decisions, putting it on a level footing with physical cultural assets.

随着时间的推移，赛璐珞胶片会退化，失去宝贵的电影历史，导致文化历史的流失，这有助于在地方和国家层面实现共同的社区、认同和定位。尽管用于访问文化资源的数字化服务有所增长，但迄今为止，尚未对可在线访问的数字本地历史资源进行经济评估。尽管最近许多国家/地区出现了数字文化服务的在线门户网站（例如艺术画廊的虚拟参观和文化档案的数字化） 一种为应对 Covid-19 流行病而加速的转变，但围绕数字文化的价值。未能考虑到数字档案的价值，可能会导致资源分配不合理，无法访问和保存当地文化历史的这些方面。作为回应，我们进行了第一次或有估值研究，以估计对包含英国各地历史电影片段的免费在线电影档案门户网站的支付意愿。用户愿意为数字档案电影服务支付平均假设订阅费用为 38.52 英镑/年。询问一般人群中的非用户是否愿意支付假设的年度捐款以维持免费公共访问（平均每年 4.68 英镑）。结果表明，在线访问数字档案电影可以获得积极的社会价值，并且知道文化遗产继续可供当代和后代公众以数字方式访问。我们概述了这些证据如何与数字商品和服务的使用和非使用价值的理论框架保持一致，该框架从目前使用门户的人，到那些被介绍过的人，以及从未直接体验过在线的普通大众档案服务。我们还报告了我们认为主观幸福感分析在参与数字文化服务方面的首次应用。应用经济学方法以货币价值评估文化活动的优势在于，它使新兴的数字文化产品和服务模式与应用于文化政策和投资决策的其他成本和收益相称，