Spring brought more than just a change in season for me this year, as I also made the leap from archives trainee at HSBC to starting a new role as Digital Archivist at the bank. In this post I have been invited to share some of my experiences so far and why I chose to move into the field of digital preservation.
I am starting this role without a background in technology and am still in the very early stages of my career, graduating less than two years ago. I began my career in archives as a trainee at HSBC in London during 2016 and I started my new role as Digital Archivist in March this year. If I was told at my graduation “in 18 months’ time you will be a digital archivist” I probably would have said “I couldn’t do that!” – which is a feeling that I think many archivists grapple with when presented with the challenges of digital preservation.
When I first heard the phrase ‘digital preservation’, before I started working at HSBC, I had a very simplistic view of storing digital records and visualised a virtual vault under lock and key to keep files safe. I did not have a full appreciation of the active maintenance that is essential to ensure access to digital records and the detailed planning and technical ingenuity that is required to avoid obsolescence and conserve files in perpetuity.
As a trainee at HSBC, along with the rest of the team, I was expected to make full use of the digital archive in my daily work when researching, cataloguing, digitising and ingesting records. My cataloguing projects during my traineeship included both physical and digital deposits, which gave me experience processing born digital records and a better understanding of how physical and digital collections relate to each other. I also had the opportunity to attend the DPC’s ‘What I wish I knew before I started’ event, which altered my mind-set towards working with technology and was one of the reasons why I felt encouraged to transition into digital preservation.
Founded in 1865 in Hong Kong, HSBC is one of the largest financial services organisations in the world. Its archives hold the social, economic and political history of the regions where HSBC, and its many subsidiaries, have operated as well as the working life of the bank during its 153 year history. The vaults of physical material such as ledgers, letters, films, photographs and advertising are accompanied by a wealth of digitised and born digital items stored in the Global Digital Archive (GDA). To date, the GDA stores around 5tb of data and contains well over 100,000 digital files in a plethora of formats – which is increasing every day.
HSBC’s Global Digital Archive (GDA) launched in January 2015 and consists of four regional Calm catalogues covering our four archival regions. These communicate with the repository, an adapted version of Preservica Enterprise Edition, using a customised API to create and link to records in Calm. All archival data is held in the digital repository and archivists are encouraged to take responsibility for the collection, ingest and cataloguing of born digital and digitised records. This means that as a system administrator, I can focus on enhancing the usability of the system, the execution of preservation activities and providing training to users.
As well as opportunities, the HSBC Digital Archive team face many challenges– however, this is one of the reasons why I felt the bank was a great place to start a career in archives and digital preservation. Here, I am exposed to challenges such as cross-border data management, complex problem solving, working with global teams remotely, and compliance with strict regulatory standards and data security requirements.
My first month has been a big adjustment as I am learning about the technical elements of how the GDA is built and maintained. However, I quickly realised that many skills of a ‘traditional’ archivist are transferable to digital archives and crossing the threshold from being a digital archives user to administrator has helped me understand the priorities of the team when providing assistance with the GDA. An example of one of these transferable skills is good data governance, which is important for archivists to ensure records are accessible by cataloguing and arranging them in the archival hierarchy with attention to detail and accuracy. This is also valuable in a digital context as rigorous daily checks can be built into workflows to ensure metadata is accurate (for example checks for duplication, illegal characters, and missing data) and maintain the structural integrity of the hierarchy within the digital repository.
A couple of practical tools that have been invaluable in my first few weeks are having a very good glossary to hand (there are a lot of acronyms used in IT!) and the CoSector OAIS course from the University of London. Despite only being in my role for a month or so, I am already very glad I took the leap and left my comfort zone. Some interesting upcoming tasks include planning and managing my first digital repository disaster recovery test, creating a training toolkit for new joiners and supporting subsequent upgrades to the GDA. My first few weeks in the field have been really rewarding and I look forward to what the next year has in store!
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