Preservica — 2022 highlights & momentum looking ahead

As the year comes to a close, it’s hard not to reflect on the digital preservation needs across industries over the last 12 months. From academic institutions and government agencies to corporate businesses and the health sector, 2022 was full of world events that will shape our history forever. It’s for that reason why preserving vital content for our collective digital memory is so important.

The global pandemic entered its “recovery stage” and added even more stories and narratives to help future generations understand the significance and repercussions of this time. The economic slowdown added new realities of shifting to digital working, and regional conflicts, like the War in Ukraine, reminded us to record events as history unfolds—no matter how gruelling it is to document.

This year also brought a heightened focus on climate change and led to deeper discussions and recorded decision-making that will help safeguard our planet and lessen our carbon footprint. Even the sports world had its own stories to tell, as the World Cup united countries on a global stage and different political climates across the world were revealed.

2023 is sure to have more preservation initiatives, as organisations around the world look to make their long-term digital information stand the test of time against evolving technologies. Preserving our digital memory is the backbone of how we educate ourselves, advocate for change, and support each other and our institutions for future generations to come.

“Digital Preservation is gaining significant traction worldwide, becoming a key consideration for many institutions,” said Mike Quinn, CEO, Preservica. “The future is about making Digital Preservation simple, powerful, and automated so that everyone can benefit.”

2022 drove rapid growth in the adoption of Preservica’s software with the user community climbing by over 60%, including more than 3,500 users of our Preservica Starter edition. Since its launch in 2021, our Community Hub has grown to over 2,400 members!

​​This year alone, Preservica announced two new launches, including a new generation of our leading Active Digital Preservation archiving and discovery software and the launch of free-forever Preservica Starter in Canada.

We also published our detailed Commitments to a new independently ratified Sustainability Charter for assessing the long-term sustainability and durability of Digital Preservation service providers. The new Charter incorporates 7 Sustainability Principles around data, software, operations, knowledge, finance, governance, and environmental impact.

The Charter was worked on by an independent group of major institutions and industry professionals, many of whom are Preservica customers. It’s because of our customers that we’re proud to lead the way in setting a new standard for the long-term durability of our technology, our services, and the company as a whole.

As a proud member of the archive community, Preservica also celebrated Archives Month with a new social media campaign – #WhatDoYouPreserve. The campaign had three goals: to celebrate archives and archivists, raise awareness about digital preservation, and give back by donating to the SAA Foundation’s Mosaic Scholarship, the nation’s leading source of nonprofit funding dedicated to the interests of archives and archivists.

The team at Preservica is guided by our growing user community to empower archivists, records managers and information professionals to further simplify and automate the future-proofing of high-value digital content for compliance and long-term value protection.

Their success is our success. That’s why we’re thrilled to share some notable customer stories that show the true power of Active Digital Preservation in action.

Museums

Collections Manager at the Military Women’s Memorial, Amy Poe, faced a wide range of challenges in making their collections easily accessible and secure online.

These issues included a small team managing multiple collection tasks, a limited budget, and a backlog of material to digitize and make available online. Using Preservica Starter Plus, Amy was able to meet her long-term preservation goals with the ability to enhance traveling exhibits through QR codes that point back to their Starter public portal.

Academic institutions

Trinity University used to manage content across multiple disparate platforms but needed a way to create a unified digital archive on a limited budget. With Preservica Starter, they were able to successfully make the case for digital preservation, easily ingesting content and adjusting hierarchies and arrangement.

Preservica also expanded their global footprint in 2022. Our cloud-hosted digital preservation software was the solution of choice by both the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) and the University of Medicine and Health Sciences (RCSI), which preserves and curates the development of medicine and surgery in Ireland.

As part of an initiative for more digital and open government, we have seen growth across the UK with 32 Local Authorities now using Preservica to safeguard and provide greater public access to government records. This is in addition to 11 regional government archives across the Netherlands now having Preservica’s cloud-hosted e-Depot software to deliver sustainable preservation and public access to digital records over decades.

The Preservica team connected with colleagues around the globe at many of 2022’s digital archiving and preservation events.

January’s Practical Training & Education series joined fellow archivists, records managers, independent practitioners, and Preservica experts together to explore the practical steps of building a digital archive using Preservica Starter edition (free-forever 5GB). The four-part series was free and exclusively available to the Information and Records Management Society (IRMS) and the Archives and Records Association (ARA).

After a two-year, in-person hiatus, Preservica was back for the 86th Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists (SAA Conference) in Boston with over 1,700 individuals in attendance. We had nearly 200 attendees in-person and virtually during our pre-conference User Group event (photo below); an energizing day full of user spotlights, interactive round tables, and training workshops.

A few other noteworthy events we participated in around the world were:

• Information & Records Management Society (IRMS) Conference – Glasglow

• iPres International Conference on Digital Preservation - Glasglow

• Archives & Records Association (ARA) Conference - London

• International Council of Archives Roma Conference (ICA) - Rome

• National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators (NAGARA) Annual Conference – Salt Lake City

• Property Records Industry Association Annual Conference (PRIA) – Fort Lauderdale

• Managing Electronic Records Conference (MER) – Indianapolis

• Association of Records Managers and Administrators InfoCon (ARMA) – Nashville

• And various regional events throughout the US

Preservica partners continue to play an invaluable role in helping to bring Digital Preservation to new audiences and new customers around the globe.

Through our ongoing relationship with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Preservica was able to host two new, free webinars with the Library Journal to connect with public and academic libraries in the US and Canada about digital preservation and Preservica’s Starter edition. Watch the free webinars here. AWS sponsorships also helped to shine a spotlight on the fragility of digital content for academic institutions in the EMEA market and elsewhere through the publishing of this article in the CIO magazine.

Other partners making a big impact this year were Nova et Vetera, a Preservica reseller in the Netherlands, BeeGees in India, and many others in the UK and other countries. In North America, Infotechtion, Re:Discovery Software, IQGB, History Associates Inc. and others were instrumental in highlighting the importance of Digital Preservation for new audiences.

Preservica’s partner network will only continue to grow in 2023 as we aim to extend the capacity of our customers by aligning them with reputable specialists that can support their efforts to drive the full lifecycle of digital content management. Look for announcements on new Preservica partnerships to support digitization, Microsoft 365 adoption and more in the coming months.

Active Digital Preservation is full steam ahead and not looking back. Turning the page to 2023 is something we are excited about at Preservica. The year ahead is sure to bring more attention to the urgency of storing information in a sustainable way.

Over the next 12 months, we will be sure to deliver on our vision to make powerful Active Digital Preservation the preferred way to manage and protect digital content.

Our world is creating more digital information today than ever before, with little insight into how future generations will access it in the decades to come. This is not ​“tomorrow’s problem”. It’s today’s problem that calls on organisations to be proactive in protecting their content.

“If you're proactive, you focus on preparing. If you're reactive, you end up focusing on repairing. – John C. Maxwell

We believe it’s those organisations, large and small, that prepare for digital preservation today that will be best positioned to weather the technology obsolescence of tomorrow. That’s why we’re making the Digital Preservation journey simple, powerful and affordable for everyone to embark on. Our Preservica Starter is available to all, free forever.

Lastly, we provided some useful digital preservation resources this year. Here are a couple of our favorites:

• 6 ways automated digital preservation changes everything

• Understanding the difference between digitization and digital preservation

We invite you to make 2023 the year you take your first steps to future-proofing your digital memory. Click here to begin your journey with Preservica Starter.

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