Austrian government invests in digital archiving

The Austrian Federal Chancellery has selected Siemens IT Solutions and Services (SISS) and Tessella’s Safety Deposit Box (SDB) to develop the Austrian State e-government Archives.

The Austrian Federal Chancellery is is investing 4.58 million euros in the provision of a central platform plus a general licence allowing all Austrian public bodies to benefit from the technology for archiving and preservation. The Austrian State Archives will be the first to use this system.

'Long-term digital preservation is a future-oriented building block for the Austrian State Archives. The project of digital preservation through the possible involvement of other archives of our country has a considerable influence in shaping the future landscape of the Austria archives,' commented Manfred Fink, director of archives for the Republic Vice Director General, Austrian State Archives.

Siemens chose the latest version of Tessella’s Safety Deposit Box (SDB4), which was developed out of work done in partnership with The National Archives of the UK, to manage the ingest process of the Austrian State e-government Archives. SDB4 has been designed to help memory institutions such as libraries and archives who are skilled at preserving paper material but face the problems posed by preserving material stored in digital formats.