A slight revised version of the presentation that I gave at the Victorian Australian Society of Archivists - covering off on open source projects using AtoM, Archivematica and other tools.

1. Presented at ASA Meeting, VIC, 10th February 2017
GAIA RESOURCES
Fun with Archives (Victorian Edition)
Piers Higgs
Gaia Resources

2. ARCHIVES
There is no magic bullet…

3. ARCHIVES
Introduction
• Gaia Resources and our evolution
• A quick overview of AtoM and open
source
• Implementation stories – Archival
Management
• Expanding on the software – Aussie
flavour
• Digital preservation

4. ARCHIVES
Museums
(& Herbaria)
Archives
LibrariesGalleries

5. ARCHIVES
Our experience

6. ARCHIVES
The platforms
Collection
Management
Archival
Management
Digital
Preservation
Archival
Management

7. ARCHIVES
AtoM Overview
• Archival Management System

8. ARCHIVES
Global Open Source

9. ARCHIVES
State Records Office of WA
• Launched with 804,023 items, 4,843 series, 5,865
consignments and 1,919 agencies
https://archive.sro.wa.gov.au/

10. ARCHIVES
State Records Office of WA
• Project included:
• Implementing AtoM
• Additional functionality (e.g. user registration, reports)
was also included in the build
• Migration of the data from the BOS/AEON system to
AtoM
• Enhancements for the implementation of the Australian
Series System

11. ARCHIVES
University of Tasmania
• Still migrating and moving data from other collections into
this system

12. ARCHIVES
University of Tasmania
• Project included:
• Implementing AtoM
• Skinning the system to match UTas livery
• Partnering with Recordkeeping
Innovation to provide Archival
Management support
• Providing ongoing technical support for the system

13. ARCHIVES
St Aloysius’ College
• Has ~30,000 objects, ~8,500 people or organisations, ~200
subjects, ~20,000 images (around 7GB storage)

14. ARCHIVES
St Aloysius’ College
• Project included:
• Themeing AtoM to match the St Aloysius branding
• Migration to our hosting environment off their systems
• Has to be a lower ongoing cost for the systems in order
to meet the budgets for the smaller institution
• Using virtual servers, minimising specifications
• Pre-purchasing run time to achieve savings

15. ARCHIVES
Stocktake
SROWA
System replacement
(AtoM & AM)
~800k objects
Hosted via client
Support running
$95k + additional
St Aloysius
System existed
(AtoM)
~30k objects
Hosted via us
T&M support
$5k + minor
UTas
New System
(AtoM)
Still in import
Hosted via Nectar
Support Block
$10k + minor

16. ARCHIVES
Australian Series System
• Has been “out” for a while
• At least two different ways of
implementing it within AtoM (ANU,
SROWA “flavours”)
• Reviewing the implementations of the Series System and
how can we move this forward?

17. ARCHIVES
Australian Series System
• To implement the Australian Series System at
SROWA, we created three new plugins:
• Archival Descriptions – via a modification of the
International Standard Archival Description plugin
• Agencies/Actors – via a modification of the International
Standard Archival Authority Record plugin
• A new Accessions plugin.

18. ARCHIVES
Australian Series System
• RKI (Barbara Reed) is currently reviewing both
implementations to determine a “best
practice” way forward
• Report being prepared for review by the community – still
working out how best to do this, already have interest
• Once reviewed, and agreed upon we will then look at how
to make these changes in the software

19. ARCHIVES
AtoM Users Australasia
• Staff from SROWA have established an
“AtoM users Australasia” Google Group – still
in it’s infancy…
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/atom-users-
australasia
atom-users-australasia@googlegroups.com

20. ARCHIVES
Introduction
• A quick overview of Archivematica and
digital preservation
• Our offerings in terms of hosting, support, etc

21. ARCHIVES
Archivematica
• Digital preservation system

22. ARCHIVES
Archivematica

23. ARCHIVES
Digital Preservation
• Biggest learnings:
• Technical implementations are the easy part for
Archivematica
• Contains a range of Microservices you need to decide
what to do with – e.g.
• formats for DIPs,
• formats for AIPs,
• where to store the DIPs, AIPs
• what sort of other checks (e.g. fixity) do you need to
run

24. ARCHIVES
Digital Preservation
• Data storage!

25. ARCHIVES
Before you start!
• Strongly suggest you undertake a planning exercise before
starting, and have a Road Map
• Examples of things to consider:
• Do you have a current system?
• Are you moving to a new platform? Which one?
• Do you have to migrate data?
• How big a change process is it for the staff using it?
• …

26. ARCHIVES
Before you start!
• Depending on your situation
you may not have the
ability (or budget) to do a
road mapping exercise
• Moving could be solely a
‘safety’ option
• Need to consider the longer
term implications of this approach
• Stage the project as best you can

27. ARCHIVES
Ways forward
• Multiple ways forward
• Move existing system,
• Implement a new system (no existing data), or
• Migrate to a new system.
St Aloysius
Move existing
SROWA
Migrate system
UTas
New system

28. ARCHIVES
Hosted offerings
• All of these three platforms are relatively “lightweight” in
terms of their hosting solutions, so require “less”
• The biggest consideration for Archivematica is storage for
the DIPs and AIPs, but the system is also quite “light”

29. ARCHIVES
There is no magic bullet…

30. ARCHIVES
Piers Higgs
(08) 92277309 or 0411 754 006
piers@gaiaresources.com.au
www.gaiaresources.com.au