Lessons we’ve learned – pragmatic digital records

The core tasks of an archive CollectionPreservationAccess

Collection – four non-problems? 1.Legal clarity on what to keep 2.Physical formats are not a ‘black hole in our history 3.Digital formats have also standardised 4.Web archiving solves for published records

Collection – the real challenges 1.Volume From 2011 to 2016: 697 terabytes, of which 34% is born-digital 2. filing is not natural Capturing remains clumsy 3. Sensitivity For us, an issue from 2017 onwards 4.Collecting social media Filter out irrelevance – perhaps 90%+

Preservation – the answer is simplicity In one month, we produce: 0.4% of all our paper documents 0.1% of all our archived web pages So we: Separate our digital repository from our presentation system Provide limited access for Freedom of Information Batch upload every year in accordance with 20-year rule

Parsimonious preservation Do Identify formats via DROID Enforce meta-data standards Clean Checksum Take the duplicate for backup Maintain the infrastructure Don’t: Migrate formats – it’s palaeography! Enforce a standard submission format to the archive Aim for unattainable longevity in hardware

Potential but also problems in the cloud The Acid Test Day 1, 3am: Cloud storage provider is taken over by a company without the requisite security One week later: New supplier commissioned One month later: and correspondence integrated, full archive transferred and accessible

Access – three routes

Why are archives difficult to search? It’s the reverse of 80/20 Page-ranked search does not work in the long tail of the long-tail Informed search % of Total Productions Note:2009 data productions based on count of requisitions data and using a total production figure of 644,227 ; rebased to exclude productions of RG14 and WO97 (as digitised) Source:Deloitte analysis; TNA Doris system

Discovery

Crowd-sourcing – e-volunteering Discovery will allow for tagging with limited moderation legislation.gov.uk uses its APIs to build a completely new way of participation – that of qualified experts

Getting the APIs used Open the platform, open the possibilities nationalarchives.gov.uk hack day Jamie Mahoney’s Show me the money visualises the financial relationships between medieval lenders and debtors Show me the money

Developing a digital strategy CollectionPreservationAccess Base every decision on how records will be used Build simple systems that can be maintained