The advances of computer technology offer many new opportunities but also new challenges. Records stored in popular file formats today may be unreadable in the near future because of constant changes in hardware, software and media technology. One of the most important challenges is tackling the problem of digital preservation, ensuring that the digital information we create and store today will continue to be accessible for as long as we may need it.

Dr Robert Sharpe, Tessella’s head of Digital Archiving Solutions, commented: “Tessella has been working on advanced digital archiving solutions for many years, alongside some of the world’s most farsighted archiving organizations. In partnership with the UK National Archives, Tessella developed the Safety Deposit Box (SDB) to help confront the problem of digital preservation. The core SDB software has been in use at the UK National Archives for four years, and has recently been significantly enhanced as part of their Seamless Flow programme. Other users of SDB include Arkib Negara (Malaysia), the British Library, and the Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv (Swiss Federal Archives).

Bill Cheng at VersaPAC said: “Delivering a complete solution requires the archiving technology to be built into the day-to-day system within an organization. For Arkib Negara we used the Trim Context system from Tower to provide the records management component and built bespoke workflows to transfer data from Trim into the new Archive, thereby delivering a complete and seamless solution. The system was successfully rolled out in two phases during 2007.”

Mr Geoff Moore at Tower Software added: “The integration of world-leading archive technology with Tower’s records management capability is a very exciting development and one we hope many other national archives and blue-chip organizations will benefit from.”

Pn Hajah Mahfuzah binti Yusof, Managing Director of the Electronic Records And Information Technology Management, Arkib Negara concluded: “This is a crucial and exciting time for archives around the world. We need to share and build on each other’s experience in order to solve the new preservation challenges.”

Tessella, VersaPAC and Tower Software are exhibiting at the International Congress of Archiving 2008 from the July 22^nd until July 26^th. Yahya Abdullah of VersaPAC will be presenting the Arkib Nagara solution on July 23^rd.  Dr Robert Sharpe of Tessella and Mr Mark Evans of Tessella Inc will be speaking on ‘The Problems of Digital Preservation of Archives’ on July 24^th.