Preservation & Migration Seminar 2026

Presentation of the programme of projects for the large-scale archive content migration, digital preservation, data modelling, and plans for the use of AI in RTÉ Archives.

The BFI National Archive has been recording UK broadcast television off-air for 40 years, and for the last 10 years that recording has been automated, achieving 24/7/365 capture of 18 channels. Within those automated recordings we have recorded every advertisement broadcast across the UK’s commercial services – ITV, Channel Four and Channel 5 – creating a comprehensive document of the nation’s promotional tv content, through a decade of major political and social upheaval such as Brexit and the Covid pandemic.

This important – and very large – collection is undocumented and difficult to access. This presentation will describe parallel projects to change that:

– Using metadata licensed from an advertising industry data provider, to create records for all the adverts, in our Collections Information Database, making this collection fully searchable, with rich descriptive metadata

– Using the timings in that metadata, to generate access to the digital media via our Digital Preservation Infrastructure, enabling visitors to BFI Southbank to discover and view the collection

– Collaborating on a post-doctoral research project with Kings College London’s Computational Humanities group to explore the potential for machine learning and computer vision to augment understanding and documentation of the adverts, driving improvements in access and analysis of this huge dataset

The MY BALKAN(S) project is a collaborative framework designed to strengthen the capacities of public service media institutions in the Western Balkans in the areas of audiovisual cultural heritage preservation, digitisation, and contemporary valorisation. In collaboration with INA France, the project acknowledges the importance of audiovisual archives as shared cultural assets in the Western Balkans region. It also recognises the common challenges these archives face, such as limited digitisation, fragmented institutional infrastructures, restricted accessibility and the need to adapt archival content to contemporary digital environments.

Within this framework, Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) is contributing as a regional partner through two interconnected activity segments.

The first focuses on digitisation, training and knowledge transfer. The RTS Digitisation Centre operates as a shared resource, enabling partner institutions to digitise selected archival materials according to internationally recognised standards and best practices. These activities are conceived as joint learning processes rather than commercial services, thereby reinforcing institutional autonomy and technical sustainability across the region. A series of structured workshops and case studies will document the entire archival workflow, from selection and documentation to restoration and public presentation.

The second segment explores new models of public valorisation, particularly the proposed Balkan Cultural Atlas. This is a digital, borderless platform based on geographical storytelling. Rather than operating as a centralised archive, the Atlas serves as an experimental space for shared visibility, collaborative development and regional dialogue, while fully respecting institutional autonomy.

This presentation will demonstrate how MY BALKAN(S) combines technical development with regional cooperation by strengthening institutions and exploring shared digital tools. It will also show how audiovisual heritage can be used as a foundation for contemporary cultural exchange in the Western Balkans.

RSI Archivi is currently completing the deepest preservation reform in its history, redefining acquisition, conservation and digital preservation within a unified conceptual framework inspired explicitly by the OAIS reference model (ISO16363). This presentation will outline how RSI is operationalising OAIS principles to create a coherent preservation strategy that seamlessly integrates analogue legacy carriers, their digitized counterparts and born digital audiovisual content into a single long term preservation framework.

The talk will illustrate:

1. how RSI is developing its Preservation Plan, governing preservation actions, responsibilities and formats across all media types, including a policy of digitise or dismiss for analogue carriers;
2. how analogue preservation, digitisation workflows, digital repository requirements and risk based dismission policies are getting connected to OAIS functions (AIP creation, ingest, preservation planning, archival storage, data management);
3. how RSI is reinforcing its digital preservation infrastructure to move towards compliance with ISO16363 aligned criteria as a precondition for dismissal of analog originals.
4. how preservation choices for analogue film, video, audio and non broadcast collections are integrated with digital preservation planning, format sustainability and migration strategies;
5. how an archiving by design approach aims to ensure that new digital, web only and social media content enters the archive in OAIS consistent ways, with sustainable formats and reliable metadata.
6. How RSI will ensure the long-term sustainability of the project by formalizing operational procedures into maintainable documents, fostering knowledge transfer through mentoring and training, and defining key RSI roles to guarantee continuity, supported by a monitoring plan, future implementation roadmap, and compliance checklist.

The session will provide a concrete case study of how a medium sized public broadcaster can align organisational transformation, analogue to digital continuity, and OAIS based governance, ensuring preservation decisions remain transparent, scalable and future proof.

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.

This presentation will focus on the challenges and learnings from the project to digitise local News cut stories held across the English regions. From the challenge of preserving this content while we still have the head life, support and expertise, to realising the opportunities of the regions moving to fully digital workflows, releasing physical storage and maximising the value of this collection to support the BBC’s Across the UK strategy.

The project includes around 26000 video tapes and 15000 Film reels and we’ll cover the steps from planning and preparing the collections, preserving the metadata, to logistics and digitisation as well as curatorial considerations which help support the BBC’s editorial and commercial ambitions.

These are live collections and therefore there is a requirement to provide continued access while the collections are transferred from physical carrier to digital.

Robust processes and quality assurance are key to driving confident disposal decisions of the digitised assets.
Eight months into the project, the workflows and processes have bedded in offering us a chance to reflect on the experience and successes so far.

The current methodology to correct azimuth on quarter inch audio tape based upon a combination of spectral tools and listening abilities has led in the last 25 years to common practices how to digitize tapes with wrongly adjusted azimuth. In a recent field test with senior archive audio engineers and young students, a test was done to compare different approaches how to adjust azimuth – based upon ears, spectral tools, and completely new approaches. The test results of traditional and new methodologies will be presented, which might put a new light and a question in the way how collections have been digitised in the past.

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.”