Vancouver Digital Archives
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NOTE: This page previously existed on wiki.artefactual.com. It has been moved to the Archivematica wiki to capture the project's history along with other Archivematica research and development. The Vancouver Digital Archives project was the genesis of Archivematica's development. This section of the wiki was first created in November 2008 and last edited in October 2010.
Project Objectives
The objective of the projects is to establish a prototype digital archives environment and provide direction on the management framework within the City of Vancouver Archives to implement and sustain a digital archives.
Project 1: VanDocs Digital Archives Project
The VanDocs Digital Archives project focused on problems related to preserving City records created within the City's Electronic Records and Document Management System - VanDocs
Project 2: Private Digital Archives
The Private Digital Archives Project seeks to build upon the progress made in project 1 and provide the Archives with the ability to preserve digital records created outside of the VanDocs environment, in particular, records created and/or maintained by private individuals and organizations in recordmaking and recordkeeping systems that the Archives has no control over.
Project Context
The City of Vancouver Archives (CVA) is responsible for permanently preserving archival records created by the City of Vancouver and its various boards and agencies. CVA is also responsible for acquiring the archives of private individuals and organizations, within the constraints imposed by its acquisitions mandate. Increasingly, many of the records created by these various bodies exist only in digital form. The CVA must ensure that it has adequate policy infrastructure and technical capacity in place to be capable of permanently preserving and providing access to authentic and reliable digital records. To meet this responsibility it has launched the Digital Archives project.
The City of Vancouver Archives is the City's Business Lead for this project, which is being conducted within the context of the VanDocs ERDMS implementation project. Artefactual Systems is the contractor providing subject matter and technical expertise in collaboration with City Archives staff and the VanDocs team.
The open-source software prototype developed in the course of the project is now being made available through the Archivematica project.
Project Schedules
Project 1 (VanDocs Records): November 1, 2008 - October 31, 2009
Project 2 (Private Records): December 2009 - December 2010