AIIM’s recent webinar on the Challenges and Benefits of Digital Preservation attracted a large and broad audience, confirming that digital preservation is now a mainstream issue. Attendees included business leaders from a range of industry sectors, including finance and pharmaceuticals, as well as traditional archiving specialists from national and state archives and libraries.

During the webinar, co-presenter Mark Evans of Tessella Inc., talked about the current landscape and early adopters in digital preservation and described the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) the world’s largest archiving program for the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

Evans said: “Organizations are increasingly aware of the risks associated with digital records.  What they may not know is that there are concrete steps they can take today to manage these risks and ensure their records are accessible decades into the future.”

Experience has shown that it is considerably more efficient to address the preservation issues for digital information as early as possible rather than make up for deficiencies at a later stage. For example, assessing the long-term importance of digital information and recording details about its format can often be done relatively easily at the point of creation, whereas it can be a costly exercise requiring significant input from domain experts at a later stage.

Hardware, software and media obsolescence issues are more effectively dealt with before obsolescence occurs, as illustrated by the considerable effort required to rescue the 1986 BBC Domesday Project, a project to mark the 900^th anniversary of the original Domesday book. The project consisted of thousands of photographs and maps combined with statistical written and visual information to produce a picture of Britain in 1986. This information was recorded onto 30cm laserdiscs and could be viewed with software running on BBC Microcomputers. Less than 20 years later, not only were the 30cm laserdiscs obsolete, but also the necessary hardware.  Separate projects were launched by The National Archives of the UK and by Leeds University to rescue this data and the software that made up the 1986 Domesday project.  This was only achieved thanks to a surviving laserdisc player and more than a year’s effort by specialist teams.

Digital archiving expert and main speaker, Professor Greg S. Hunter Ph.D., CRM, CA of Long Island University and Senior Consultant to History Associates Inc., urged business to act now explaining: “Our increasing reliance on digital information brings many new opportunities but we must be prepared to rise to new challenges”.

The webinar provides a historical perspective on preservation methods and issues, as well as discussing the challenges created by the shift to digital records. To listen to a recording of the webinar please visit: www.tessella.com/digitalpreservation

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Notes to editors:

• For press enquiries or to arrange an interview with Tessella please email Christina Tealdi, Marketing Communications & PR Executive, at Christina.tealdi@tessella.com
• Tessella has over 20 years of proven expertise in the area of reliable and authentic long-term preservation of electronic records, both for government and scientific organizations. In recent years a number of mainly academic and government organizations have been at the cutting-edge of facing up to the digital preservation challenge, and Tessella has played a key role in a number of the most practical of these initiatives.
• Tessella has been successfully delivering technology and consulting services to world leaders in research and development, science and engineering. Through the application of scientific methodology and information technology, Tessella has enabled clients such as Pfizer, Shell, Unilever and Lockheed Martin to achieve a vast range of objectives, including, developing fusion technology, enhancing military sensor capability, increasing drug discovery and development efficiency, and reducing risk to health and the environment in the extraction and production of energy and developing flood forecasting models. Tessella 250 problem solvers are based at offices in North America, the UK, and our European base in the Netherlands.
• ERA is the US National Archives and Records Administration’s strategic initiative to preserve and provide long-term access to uniquely valuable electronic records of the U.S. Government, and to transition government-wide management of the lifecycle of all records into the realm of e-government.
• Mark Evans joined Tessella in 1999 and has worked as a consultant supporting digital preservation programs for the past six years. In 2002, Mark was involved in the design, development and rollout of the UK National Archives Digital Archive, and played a key role in the development of the core data models including flexible and extensible metadata schemas. In 2003 Mark moved to the USA to lead Tessella’s involvement in the Electronic Records Archives program (ERA) for the US National Archives and Records Administration; a consortium primed by Lockheed Martin. In August 2005 the team were successfully awarded the contract to deliver ERA though 2011. Mark has played a senior role since the beginning, providing subject matter expertise across many areas of the program including architecture, functional specification, preservation services, dissemination and data modelling. In addition to his work on ERA, Mark has worked with a number of major pharmaceutical companies providing consultancy services in requirements elicitation, and specification of digital archiving solutions. Mark is currently leading Tessella’s archiving efforts in the USA.
• Professor Gregory S. Hunter, is both a Certified Records Manager and a Certified Archivist. In August 2004 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) and two of his books have received awards from the SAA. Since January, 1990, Professor Hunter has been a Professor in the Palmer School of Library and Information Science at Long Island University, directing graduate-level certificate programs in archives and records management. Professor Hunter is the Principal Archivist and Records Manager on a team headed by Lockheed Martin to build an Electronic Records Archives (ERA) for the National Archives and Records Administration.
• AIIM is the community that provides education, research, and best practices to help organizations find, control, and optimize their information. For over 60 years, AIIM has been the leading non-profit organization focused on helping users to understand the challenges associated with managing documents, content, records, and business processes. Today, AIIM is international in scope, independent, implementation-focused, and, as the representative of the entire ECM industry – including users, suppliers, and the channel – acts as the industry’s intermediary. AIIM was founded in 1943 as the National Microfilm Association and later became the Association for Information and Image Management. AIIM is also known as the Enterprise Content Management Association.

Tessella contact details:

www.tessella.com

info@tessella.com

Tessella Support Services plc (EU HQ)

3 Vineyard Chambers

Abingdon

Oxfordshire

OX14 3PX

UK

Tel: 44 (0) 1235 555511, Fax: 44 (0) 1235 553301

Tessella also has UK offices in Burton upon Trent, Cambridge, Stevenage, Warrington and Winchester, and an office in Den Haag.

Tessella Inc (US HQ)

233 Needham Street, Suite 300

Newton, MA 02464

USA

Tel: (1) 617 454-1220, Fax: (1) 617 454-1001

Tessella Inc also has an office in Washington DC

Relates to: Archiving & Digital Preservation, solutions-technologies

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