08 Nov Conference: The Digital Everyday (November 2023)
The Business Archives Council of Scotland and the Business Archive Council Scotland held a joint HYBRID conference on the 8th November 2023 at the HSBC Head Office in Canary Wharf in London. The event was entitled The Digital Everyday: Tools for Digital Preservation and Access.. The morning focused on the tools, systems and programs available to help you preserve your digital records to the highest possible standards and the afternoon explored the ways available to provide access to this content.
Programme: The Digital Everyday’
Keynote speech
Tina Staples, Global Head of Archives, and James Morlock Senior Archives Manager, HSBC, will share HSBC Archives’ digital journey, including the creation of the HSBC History Website and the latest developments with their Global Digital Archive System.
Session 1 – Digital Preservation
The first part of the session will share tools and guidance that are available to the business archives community to support their digital preservation activities. The second part of the session will hear practical examples from a cross-section of the business archives and other institutions, providing examples of approaches being taken to digital preservation.
Part 1 speakers:
- Paul Wheatley, Head or Research and Practice, Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) – speaking about the DPC’s freely available tools for business archives to utilise on their preservation journey.
- David Underdown, Data Engineer, The National Archives – “Three free digital preservation tools from The National Archives”.
- Nathan Voogt, Director Business Development, Preservica – ‘Empowering Archives: A Digital Preservation Journey’, highlighting how organisations, regardless of their scale or resources, can actively engaging in Digital Preservation.
Part 2 speakers:
- Karyn Williamson – ‘A business archivist’s experience adopting a scalable and sustainable approach to digital preservation using Open-Source software’
- Bryony Hooper, University of Sheffield, ‘Tools of Engagement: Methods involved in engaging with a community of stakeholders to help support and nurture our development in Digital Preservation’.
- Fabiana Barticioti, British Airways ‘Digital Preservation in Hindsight: some thoughts on basic housekeeping, upskilled people and keeping it up with moving parts.’
Session 2 – ‘Ask the Experts’
An opportunity for attendees to ask our panel of experts about their experiences and tips on digital preservation.
Chair: Jennifer Pearson, HSBC Digital Archivist Panelists: Jennifer Febles, HSBC Archives Manager Paul Wheatley, Digital Preservation Coalition David Underwood, The National Archives Karyn Williamson, Business Archivist Bryony Hooper, University of Sheffield Nathan Voogt, Preservica (Sponsor) Casper Smithson, Townsweb (Sponsor)
Session 3 – ‘Show and Tell’
Demonstrations and talks, providing practical examples of digital access from the business archives community and other institutions. Speakers were:
- Casper Smithson, Chief Operating Officer, TownsWeb Archiving – ‘Enhancing the access and discovery of digital collections with Handwritten Text Recognition’
- Naomi Korn, CEO and Sofia Carroll, Information Governance Manager, Naomi Korn Associates- ‘The National Archives Data Protection: A new tool to help understand Data Protection considerations when providing access to digital content held in archive collections.’
- Lucy Bonner, Archivist, Institution of Mechanical Engineers – ‘Making the IMechE Archive Accessible Online’
- Robert MacLean, Assistant Librarian, University of Glasgow Library – ‘The University of Glasgow Archives & Special Collections Virtual Collections Classroom’
- Dr Antigone Heraclidou, Senior Research Associate, CYENS Centre of Excellence – ‘Deep mapping Nicosia’s urban centre, 1960-2020: an interactive approach to the evolution of business activity in the capital of Cyprus.’
- Katherine Chorley, Archivist, The Macallan – ‘From AtoM to Access: The Macallan’s digital archive journey so far’