Preservation & Migration Seminar 2026

Tea, coffee and refreshments.

The Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) is a CoreTrustSeal-certified trustworthy digital repository for the preservation of Ireland’s humanities, cultural heritage, and social sciences digital data for long-term access and discovery. As a dedicated digital preservation platform, DRI is committed to the FAIR Principles, and to fostering long-term access and re-use of the content we steward.

To that end, DRI is launching a new project in 2026 called ‘DRI Labs’. The aim of the Labs is to facilitate data-level access to DRI collections for Open Research, demonstrating the reuse potential of DRI datasets. It is designed on the International GLAM Lab model, to encourage space for creativity and engagement with collections while also providing a clear boundary between regular service provision and opportunities for innovation that may require more trial and error. It will encourage an atmosphere that is transparent about failure as a valuable part of learning and provides space for diverse skills and experiences in the development of new resources.

Data reuse is an important outcome of digital preservation work, and is attracting increasing attention from the Open Research community keen to assess and appraise the long-term value of the wealth of data now being produced. Projects such as DRI Labs, which aim to draw attention to patterns of data reuse across communities, will be useful in establishing new workflows that ensure a wide variety of data formats continue to be accessible and available as long as necessary.

An important feature of DRI Labs will be the integration of sustainable choices in all aspects of work, both technical and social. DRI Labs offers an opportunity to test workflows that reduce the environmental impact of digital preservation activities as well as mechanisms to integrate care into our approach to environmental accountability.
In this talk, we will explore how DRI Labs contributes to an understanding of the needs of data reusers and the environmental impact of new technologies for sharing data.

We may all know what media preservation best practices.
Still, there may be doubts between the map and the territory.
Which are the good reasons at basis of recommendations?
If there are (good?) reasons to explore alternative practices, how to estimate the impact of different approaches.

TV and radio scripts are a goldmine of metadata, but many are trapped on outdated storage formats. In this case study, we show how we are working to recover and preserve this vital information, from building the hardware to analyzing and converting obsolete file formats

With so much metadata being produced today, and holding decades of legacy information, what should our metadata preservation strategy be in order to maximise the potential from legacy broadcast archives?

Founded over 126 years ago, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) is a leading Brazilian public institution in the fields of public health research and scientific development. Its scientific and cultural heritage comprises a wide range of archival collections, including significant audiovisual holdings that document public health policies, institutional activities, and social transformations in Brazil. Within this institutional framework, VideoSaúde Distribuidora da Fiocruz (VSD) is responsible for the production, preservation, and dissemination of audiovisual materials related to public health, maintaining an archival collection accumulated over 38 years and consisting of approximately 9,500 publicly accessible items through its open-access online catalogue, the Banco de Recursos Audiovisuais em Saúde (BRAVS).

This presentation provides an overview of VSD’s actions in the management and digital preservation of its audiovisual archive, in alignment with Fiocruz’s preservation policies. On academic and technical fronts, studies were carried out to assess the archive and define preservation metadata profiles consistent with international standards such as ISO 14721:2025 (OAIS) and ISO 16363:2012, as well as with national archival guidelines. These efforts informed the development of dedicated digitisation workflows, the VSD Digitisation Plan, and the design of the VSD Preservation Management System (SGP VSD). Additional work includes the implementation of the PREMIS metadata standard and the encoding of semantic units in XML to document digital preservation processes.

These initiatives were strengthened by the deployment of Archivematica, enabling structured experimentation, testing, and dissemination of results regarding its applicability to VSD’s audiovisual holdings. In parallel, the unit’s participation in an interinstitutional cooperation agreement supported the creation of the Video Digitisation Laboratory (Lab VSD) and the technical planning of its infrastructure, paving the way for integration into a Trusted Digital Repository framework.

Together, these advancements consolidate preservation practices aligned with international standards and contribute to ensuring the long-term authenticity, integrity, and accessibility of Fiocruz’s audiovisual heritage, reaffirming VSD’s role in safeguarding the memory of public health in Brazil.

Among the BFI National Archive’s myriad television treasures sits the TVAM collection. A monument of British commercial breakfast television innovation, these recordings contain an exciting slice of UK heritage, traversing the period from early 80s into the 1990s. Programmes were recorded ‘as broadcast’ at the TVAM studios in London, many of which on the lesser used Panasonic alternative to Betacam, MII. As with so many videotape formats from the time, there are now complex challenges with obsolete machinery to overcome as well as physical degradation to contend with before any attempts can be made to digitise the programmes for long term digital preservation and access.

The proposed presentation will reveal how the BFI has taken the opportunity to incorporate one of its Archive Trainees into the investigative and process forming stages to prepare both themselves and operational colleagues for a workflow tailored specifically to the needs of a relatively rare videotape formats. On the seminar stage will be both the trainee Thom Walker and his mentor Charles Fairall, who together will discuss the journey so far, showing the successes and practical challenges encountered along the way.

Since 1995, the Institut national de l’audiovisuel (INA) has been entrusted with the legal deposit of audiovisual works in France. Its responsibilities include preserving and ensuring accessibility to all broadcast programs for research purposes. Additionally, INA has been doing off-air TV & radio recording since 2002, collecting an impressive 24 million hours of audiovisual content.

The increasing volume of content recorded under legal deposit has made traditional shelf-based storage impractical. It has become essential to centralize the files within INA’s digital preservation storage to ensure their long-term preservation, rapid access, and facilitate future archival migrations. One approach has been to develop a direct flow of new incoming files to the digital library. The second step, taking place between 2023 – 2028, is to migrate all 15 millions hours of back programs stored on older storage media (DVDs, SDLTs, LTOs) to INA’s main LTO 9 library.

The large-scale migration campaign is carried out entirely in-house and led by the off-air recording department. This presentation will focus on the design, planning and implementation of the migration of 320.000 DVDs, covering the period 2002-2008. The first part of the presentation will be dedicated to a general overview of the project and its scope before delving into the specific tools developed for the project, and in particular its driving force, the INA-built software “Migramann.”

This demonstration will show the core stages of a digital preservation workflow: identification, validation, and characterisation. Using CloudViPER [5], a browser-based virtual environment pre-loaded with open-source preservation tools, we will show practical use with a curated sample corpus to demonstrate how these stages connect to form a coherent preservation workflow.

Aligned with the themes of the FIAT/IFTA Preservation & Migration Commission (PMC), our demonstration emphasizes preservation formats, preservation of metadata, and use of the OAIS model, using industry-standard tools and showing how these tools can be used together into automated policy-driven workflows.Making use of the OPF Reference Workflow [1] and frameworks such as the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation [2], we will demonstrate DROID and JHOVE for validation and MediaInfo for characterisation, showing attendees not just how to run the tools, but how to interpret the results and make their preservation decisions.

Digital preservation workflows typically begin with understanding what digital objects contain, whether they are valid, and what their significant properties are. These fundamental questions - addressed through identification, validation, and characterization - form the foundation of any preservation strategy. Frameworks like the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation and OAIS Reference Model [3] describe what capabilities organizations need; this workshop shows how to implement them with practical tools.The Open Preservation Foundation (OPF) has developed a Reference Workflow [1] that maps common preservation activities to the pre-ingest and ingest stages of the OAIS [3] model. This workshop operationalizes that workflow, giving participants practical experience with the open-source tools that implement each stage - and crucially, how to interpret results to inform preservation decisions.Building digital preservation communities requires overcoming barriers to accessing specialized tools. CloudViPER addresses this by providing a fully configured virtual environment accessible through any web browser, available for teaching or digital preservation. Participants can focus on learning the workflow and sharing experiences rather than troubleshooting installation issues. The small group format enables rich peer learning and discussion of real-world challenges - we expect and will encourage subject matter experts to be among the participants, and their contributions enrich the workshop for everyone.

Our demonstration aims to:
- Introduce the OPF Reference Workflow as a practical framework for digital preservation
- Display format Identification as a media file (using FIDO or DROID) [4]
- Establish Validation techniques 
- Explore characterization and metadata extraction 
- Demonstrate how the tools can be chained together into automated workflows

This demonstration is ideal for participants across all experience levels, from newcomers to digital preservation to practitioners, managers, and educators. 

Our demonstration will provide an easy-to-follow introduction to digital preservation workflows, following the FIAT/IFTA theme of showing how to protect audiovisual content longevity and the OAIS model.Attendees will leave with access to further learning resources and a practical understanding of how open-source tools can support their preservation needs.

References
[1] Open Preservation Foundation, "OPF Reference Workflow," [Online]. Available: https://openpreservation.org/resources/opf-reference-workflow/.[2] N. L. o. D. P. W. Group, "Levels of Digital Preservation V2.0," [Online]. Available: https://osf.io/2mkwx/.[3] The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems, "Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS)," [Online]. Available: https://public.ccsds.org/Pubs/650x0m2.pdf .[4] Open Preservation Foundation, "Tools - Open Preservation Foundation," [Online]. Available: https://openpreservation.org/tools/ .[5] Open Preservation Foundation, "CloudViPER1 Release,"[Online]. Available: https://openpreservation.org/tools/cloudviper/

Worldwide, millions of historically invaluable audio and video recordings stored on magnetic tape are at risk of being lost forever, with digitisation hindered by media degradation and playback equipment obsolescence. In this panel, we will explore the possibilities opened by combining scientific, lab-based characterisation techniques to understand degradation mechanisms and their origins.

We will connect microscopic measurements to the real-world “syndromes” encountered in archives, such as sticky-shed and adhesion syndromes and embrittlement, drawing on case studies from private and national archives worldwide.

Recent synchrotron X-ray imaging results show that tape degradation is not limited to the binder. The magnetic pigment can also degrade, potentially leading to loss of stored information. Complementary diagnostics (e.g., spectroscopy, microscopy, and magnetic measurements) can reveal degradation pathways and help explain observed failures.

To address equipment obsolescence, we will introduce progress towards a universal tape reader using a high-sensitivity, touchless magnetic readout architecture, aimed at reducing reliance on increasingly scarce legacy machines.

The discussion will focus on practical decision points: what measurements can tell us about risk, which interventions are likely to help (or harm), and how to translate lab diagnostics into actionable guidance for digitisation workflows and long-term storage. From the perspective of content libraries, we will also highlight the scale and value of at-risk collections, and the accelerating opportunities for access as new technologies mature. We will conclude with a forward-looking view of how scientific innovation can help overcome tape degradation and format obsolescence, and how archives can position themselves to take advantage of these emerging capabilities.