Work Breakdown Structure

The partners have analysed the different steps of preservation work towards access according to archives practices and to the required skills and technologies. The main production chain is the migration from analogue to digital material, including :

• Stock evaluation, identification and selection
• The digitisation process and its control
• The restoration
• The storage
• The production of content information (metadata) allowing for access and delivery

There is a strong motivation to achieve this work in a continuous way - for technical and economic reasons and to limit, when possible, human intervention. Thus it is expected to collect all information available during the process, including assessment of equipment and technical quality; this approach minimises poor playback, material damage and any limitation on later use of the results.

For quality enhancement through restoration and for time-based content description through analysis and knowledge management, other processes can be used "off-line" from the preservation chain.

These technical processes management tools are needed for planning the activities and for cost-quality-efficiency optimisation. The management requirements are high because the staff involved can be a combination of both internal archive staff and external subcontractors of facilities houses.

Bloc diagram

The previous considerations are summarised in the diagram below :

As the archive management questions are tightly interrelated to the cost of storage and the long term investment planning, storage and archive management issues are therefore addressed within one Work Area.

It is the project’s view that the real significance of metadata is to ensure easy access to the essence (the images and the sound), and that this would be best handled by having the developments in the metadata area integrated within the delivery and access systems.