As the eArchiving Initiative marked its tenth anniversary on May 29, 2024, in Brussels, the Publications Office of the EU took the opportunity to reflect on nearly a decade of innovation and strategic impact.
The Publications Office is the central point of access to EU law, and publications. It also gives access to open data, research results, procurement notices and other official information published by the EU institutions, bodies and agencies. To achieve this, the Publications Office wears multiple hats: as a publishing house, a legal depository and an archive for the publications authored by the EU institutions.
Addressing the Archival Challenge
In 2014, the Publications Office of the EU faced a strategic decision on how to fulfill its mission to archive the material confided in it. Since its first repository launch in 1987, the Publications Office had relied on a sequence of document management systems (DMS) to store and manage EU publications.
Due to new legal regulations and security level requirements, the need for a standardised digital preservation solution became clear. The Publications Office was tasked with the responsibility of ‘preserving and archiving electronic files and handling them in line with future technological developments’.
The approach had to meet the following criteria: open-source, international, and European standards-compliant, and seamlessly integrable into the Publications Office’s IT architecture. After a call for tenders, the resulting service contract concluded with Intrasoft International (now Netcompany Intrasoft S.A.) and subcontractor Keep Solutions to manage storage, operations, and development.
The Common Specification for Information Packages (CSIP) aims to provide a common set of usage descriptions of international standards for packaging digital information for archiving purposes. By the time CSIP was formally released in 2017, the Publications Office was already aligning its practices with these specifications, making it one of the first organisations to adopt E-ARK specifications.
Benefits achieved
There are some lessons learned after the completition of the move to a long-term digital preservation repository based on eArchiving.
- Cost saving: The application of standards and already tested best practices avoids costly trial and error.
- Flexibility: The E-ARK specifications were flexible enough to be compatible with the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) model and supported the Publications Office’s multilingual document management.
- Scalability: The volume of the ingested documents has grown over time, and the system has been able to adapt with no noticeable loss of service.
- Interoperability: The use of E-ARK specifications and open-source software avoids vendor lock-in and brings sense of trust and credibility for other agencies and organisations.
- Community and knowledge sharing: Events and webinars held by the eArchiving Initiative continue to promote collaborative dialogue and to exchange experiences between organisations.
As eArchiving enters its second decade, the Publications Office’s journey illustrates the potential of standardised digital preservation systems in public administration.
To know more about the shared history of the Publications Office of the EU and eArchiving readers can check the in-depth paper authored by Corinne Frappart.