Means and Resources for building a digital archive

Introduction

If reading the manual so far has made you think, “This is all very nice, but my organization does not have anything close to the resources, expertise, or capacity to handle this entire exercise,” you are not alone. In fact, you are likely in a significant majority. The good news is that there is no good reason to close this book and give up!

If the content you are working with has historical and social value, if it can facilitate transitional justice processes and potentially support positive social change, and if your organization is dedicated—and has a strong organizational will—to do its utmost to preserve that material, then you should not walk away from that cause just because the degree of difficulty is high. The following section describes why and how it is possible to build and maintain a digital archive scaled to your organization’s capacities, even when your initial resources and expertise might be modest.

Resourcing

The main resource the organization will need to have in excessive amounts throughout the process of building a digital archive is a strong commitment, persistence, and willingness to address various challenges.

Such a strong and comprehensive commitment is the most valuable asset in the digital archiving process and the closest thing to a guarantee of eventual success. This is because, even under the best circumstances, building a digital archive is a continuous problem-solving process of constant challenges that demand new and creative solutions. Even if, at the beginning, an organization has all the resources needed to build a digital archive, if it lacks commitment, it may as well give up, as it will be faced with continuous challenges and demands for maintenance, migration, and transformation, which never end in digital archiving.

Image shared by CCJ, GIJTR partner organization in Colombia.

“When there is a will, there is a way,” on the other hand, is the right way to approach digital archiving. An organization can start small and plan modestly without overextending itself, giving itself the time and space to develop the digital archive. And even when digitization efforts are seemingly minor, they are likely to prove useful. Such efforts accumulate and incrementally build different functions and qualities of an archive.

“Doing something is way better than doing nothing” is the second motto that should be applied by CSOs looking to start their digital archiving efforts. While this manual describes an optimal process of building and developing a digital archive using a sequence of steps, in reality, companies do not operate in a vacuum, so doing so may not be workable for a given firm.

An organization might need to urgently preserve and safely back up a portion of its digital material. Or maybe it has boxes of important documents that are partly damaged and need to be digitized and preserved immediately. Addressing such urgent needs would then likely involve a small and localized digitization or digital preservation effort, perhaps using a couple of hard disks and an Excel spreadsheet. Yet, even such small efforts often prove very useful and meaningful later on and can also create positive momentum for the further development of the organization's digital archiving function.

“It is a battle for the hearts and minds.” Building a digital archive requires the right people—and many of them—to be on board and to support the mission and goals of the archive. This includes both staff and external actors. Internally, it is not enough for directors or managers to agree. Virtually all staff, from administration to IT, need to support the decision to build a digital archive and perform the necessary implementation in the long term. Equally, an organization’s key external partners, friendly CSOs, experts, journalists, donors, and mentors should all be supportive—and, to the greatest extent possible, be engaged in building the archive. Having a strong network of such relevant actors supporting the organization’s digital archiving efforts is an invaluable resource in this process. 

Resourcing and Fundraising Plan

Throughout this manual, we identify and point out a wide range of financial, technical, and organizational resources required to build a digital archive. This includes human resources and expertise, financial resources, computers and servers, storage media and cloud services, digital archiving software, other specialized software and hardware, various scanning equipment, office and archive space, internet access, furniture, and logistics.

This list above can seem overwhelming and is likely not even comprehensive. However, again, this is not a reason to panic and walk away. These requirements relate to different phases of the digital archive’s life cycle. Hence, the resources can and should be obtained and built gradually. As already noted but worth repeating, an organization can set its own pace and plan the time frame for building the archive in accordance with its capacities and ability to obtain the necessary resources.

That process starts with planning. The organization should conduct a thorough assessment in consultation with experts (if possible) of the overall resource needs related to developing its digital archive, broken down by phases and activities. This should include an analysis of the more immediate, short- and medium-term needs in developing the digital archive (i.e., which resources need to be obtained and within which time frame). Additional assessments of the resources the organization already has or can easily acquire should then be made.

Based on these assessments, a realistic, feasible plan should be made for securing the necessary resources and funds to develop a digital archive, both in terms of immediate steps and for the long term. Such a Resource and Fundraising Plan should be developed as an open and flexible document to update and improve it as new opportunities, potential partnerships, or priority needs arise.

Fundraising is far from the only game in town regarding digital archiving resourcing. This is because one-off financial donations cannot resolve resourcing issues for a digital archive in the long term. Rather, these donations require a combination of different sources of support and funding and a “pallet” of varied approaches to acquiring that support and resources.

For example, large IT companies such as Google have programs through which they support nonprofit organizations worldwide. This can include in-kind donations from hardware and software to services, training, and/or expertise. Further, through fruitful partnerships with other CSOs or other institutions such as universities or media, human rights CSOs can extend the scope and number of potential donors or supporters they can reach.

There are also ways to obtain some of the necessary resources or equipment for digital archiving that do not require financial means. Open source software is certainly the main element in a digital archive resourcing puzzle, as it can provide a service that’s superior to commercial solutions—free of financial cost, although the investment in time and human resources will then need to be substantial.

Setting up and running an internship or volunteering program attached to the archive could be a way to add strength to the archive's human resources—which can be used beyond simply the repetitive work needed to perform the many time-consuming archival and technical tasks, such as description or digitization. Interns and volunteers bring their valuable knowledge, experience, ideas, and expertise, substantially adding to a digital archive’s resource portfolio.

Donors as Partners

In building a digital archive, we are looking for both long-term donors and partners. In fact, for the most part, donors need to be partners in digital archiving, as it is necessary that they fully understand both the importance and demands of the process. Such relationships also need to be built on mutual trust to keep them going long-term. Donors should always be informed of any major difficulties or problems we encounter and successes.

Therefore, in approaching the existing and new donors for archive funding, we should be open about the need for continued support and realize that the process is complex and will take time.

However, we should not seek their support for building or maintaining the digital archive but rather for what we plan and want to do with it and its content. We should approach the donors with a proposal to build a virtual museum for victims, not with a request for the new software we need for that museum. We should propose the creation of a searchable database of disappeared persons to potential supporters, not request funding to hire another programmer.

Finally, as mentioned in the section on outreach, visibility and presence in the community help. Making the archive’s benefits salient and clear—to not only the donors and partners but also, whenever possible, a wider public—adds a valuable layer of social relevance and credibility to the archive. Building awareness of the value our digital archive has for the wider community is an important—if not the most important—asset for obtaining resources and funding, especially in the long term.

A highly recommended approach, therefore, is to make use of the archive for visibility purposes as early in the process as possible. This can include creating public-facing and outreach products using archival material and/or providing access to at least a segment of the future archival content. This would give us a palpable product that can provide a taste of what our archive can deliver and make it much easier to attract and retain donors’ attention.

Capacity building and Networking

Because you are reading this manual, you are already engaging in the two activities from the title of this heading: building capacity. Indeed, this publication, as well as the project it is a part of, has been designed precisely to address the need for capacity building and connecting CSOs working on the digital archiving of human rights violations. This includes CSOs sharing digital archiving lessons through interviews and questionnaires, discussions held during a virtual conference in 2022, relevant literature, and a collected set of informative resources made available as part of this project and available on the GIJTR website.

The importance of and benefits from connecting with like-minded partners, as well as from the gradual development of capacities of the organization in digital archiving, are not always tangible. Their value and importance are not exclusive to raising funds and obtaining the necessary resources for digital archiving—although those are certainly important as well. Networking and capacity building are also crucial for the long-term development of the archive and the organization, as well as for the successful preservation and effective utilization of our digital content.

In terms of capacity building, this relates primarily to extending and specializing an organization’s human resources, as well as strengthening the organizational aspects that support digital archiving. The long-term goal is to build expertise within the organization. This can be achieved through staff training and new hirings, by adding workforce when needed, by specializing staff members for certain tasks and roles related to building digital archives, and through education of all relevant staff on key archival principles and practices. It is also important to be mindful that this process of building organizational capacities for digital archiving needs to be backed with adequate administrative and logistical support from all parts of the organization in terms of management of finances, human resources, establishing new procedures, procurement, etc.

Considering that resources for training and staff development in CSOs’ budgets are, to put it mildly, rarely substantial, it is highly important to note that opportunities exist for free or sponsored training and education on digital archiving. Literature is also prolific and widely available, as well as digital archiving software users and developers and access to communities of digital archivists. There are also programs that provide for sponsored, external expert assistance for CSOs in the process of building a digital archive. Such experts can not only guide the organization’s staff in developing the archive, but also provide training and later assistance as long-term consultants with in-depth knowledge of the archive.

Finally, an organization does not need to do everything by itself. Sometimes, the demands of a task or function will simply be overwhelming and out of reach for an organization, even in the longer term. Or an organization can make a considered decision not to invest its resources in a certain complex or resource-draining aspect of the digital archiving process. This could, for example, be the case with digitization, the development of an access platform, or implementation of data security software. In such a case, we can decide to entrust another organization with performing this segment of work.

Outsourcing parts or even the majority of digital archiving work can be an excellent option, especially for small organizations and those working in conflict-affected areas or under authoritarian regimes. The goal is then to find a trusted partner organization that is willing and able to perform this element of work. Often, smaller CSOs will work with the larger ones that have more capacity and can provide outsourcing for certain services.

Similarly, a number of CSOs will join in a partnership or network, thereby merging and multiplying their capacities. Universities can also be a good choice for a partner, as they are trusted institutions that can be expected to provide long-term support.

Networking, and especially joining forces with external partners, could also be seen as a way to build the necessary capacities of an organization to build and preserve a digital archive. The benefits are numerous and include finding solutions for shared challenges, and merging forces to either obtain a certain resource or jointly address a particular issue.

It is a good practice for an organization to keep track and make use of different networking opportunities, such as virtual and regular conferences; online digital archiving communities, public promotions of the organization’s work in relation to the archive, which then create new connections; or close monitoring of the field, along with keeping an eye open for potential synergies.