Reinventing Archival Methods – Description and Preservation

Brendan Somes30 November 2012

Introduction

DescriptionAudiovisual Preservation

The Archive

380 kilometres294k paper, 28k maps, 18k bound

volumes, 31k AV, 4k photos, 4k microforms42 million items

Description

About 85,000 series; about 47,000 series ‘hold’ the collection

About 9,400 AgenciesAbout 1,000 PersonsAbout 10 million items

Thirty years

Agency (n/e) Series (n/e) Items

1983/84 288/165 1855 N/A

1988/89 152/1472 1748/3957 N/A1997/98 N/A N/A 2,082,466

2002/03 N/A N/A 5,228,380

2011/12 14/36 235/526 10,309,627

Items left to do

Transfers since 2002 fully item enteredSo left to do - Items prior to 2002 –

approximately 30 million items

Queries Items Issued

Digitised Items Viewed

Items Entered

1983/84 3,446 27,205 N/A N/A

1994/95 33,004 45,336 N/A 1,568,158 (95/96)

2002/03 147,790 49,448 110,568 5,228,380 (4,959,078 public)

2006/07 123,734 125,406 1,485,145 7,590,074 (6,922,542 public)

2010/11 84,295 107,608 1,928,552 9,889,479 (8,104,905 public)

Describing Digital Archives

Commonwealth Record Series ModelRecordSearch

Description - Future

Business systems – greater workflow automation, harvesting, crowdsourcing

Agency metadata qualityMediation between users and the archival

intellectual model

Description - Future

Administrative HistoryQuality

MaintenanceMetadata models

Utilisation of existing information (eg records authorities)

Audiovisual Preservation

30 kilometres; 600,000 itemsFilm – 250,000

Video – 100,000Audio – 250,000

Preservation Purpose

To maintain accessibility by copying to new formats and/or storing in appropriate

environmental conditions

Preservation Copying

Transition to digital preservation formatsFirst audio

Second videoThird film (some)

Preservation Formats

Open standardsIndustry standards

Interoperability constraintsLack of open formats for video, film

Preservation Formats

Audio – bwf and flacVideo – jpeg2000

Film – aviAlways – the original

Challenges

ObsolescenceDeterioration

Workflow managementStorage managementPreservation formats

Now and the Future

New AV management systemAV Digital Archive

New Low Temperature Storage

End thoughts

Business systemsThe requirements of the archive

The requirements of the stakeholdersThe requirements of the environment

The requirements of the future