Case Study digital archive HEK

From a manual to an automated digital archive at HEK

HEK has a collection of currently more than 90 artworks, of which most have digital components. Some artworks have several digital components such as different video files or source code. This results in about 150 digital archival information packages that need to be stored safely.

Storing digital artworks is not just saving them on a disk and making backups. In a digital archive, the integrity of the digital artworks has to be checked regularly, too. File integrity means that the bits of a file do not change. Through aging of a data carrier bits can flip and compromise the integrity of the stored file. Instead of repairing the compromised file it is replaced with a correct one. Hence, an archive consists not only of storage space, but also of processes that make sure that the stored artwork components stay unchanged.

The following report explains HEK’s journey from a manually operated digital archive to an automated archive. It discusses different standarts for archival packages, how they are implemented at HEK and what difficulties HEK faced (and still faces) to implement the digital archive.