Preservation & Migration Seminar 2026

The National Theatre has undertaken a significant transformation of its digital archive, migrating more than 150,000 assets and 200TB of material from fragmented legacy systems into a unified, sustainable preservation and access platform.

This presentation examines how the organisation moved away from disconnected spreadsheets, bespoke metadata structures and a limited discovery interface to build an intuitive, standards‑aligned environment that supports long‑term access and organisational engagement. The session outlines the shift to using the Dublin Core metadata schema, the adoption of CSV‑based bulk ingest, and the decision to treat each production as a discrete workflow; an approach that made large‑scale migration achievable and encouraged wider staff participation. It also highlights how the new platform has improved discovery, increased visibility of creative roles across productions, and strengthened cross‑departmental collaboration by lowering technical barriers.

Attendees will gain practical insights into modernising legacy digital archives, designing scalable ingest strategies, and preparing for system decommissioning in complex environments.