Samir Musa is Digital Archivist and Electronic Records Manager at the Historical Archives of the European Union, located at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.
What records will remain of today’s European institutions in fifty years? In one hundred?
Increasingly, the decisions, activities and evidence that document the history of the European Union (EU) are created and managed digitally. Yet digital records do not survive simply because the files themselves persist.
Formats change. Systems are replaced. Metadata can become separated from the records it describes. Links between documents may disappear, and with them the evidence needed to understand who created a record, why it was created and how it relates to other records.
At the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) in Florence, this challenge lies at the heart of our digital preservation work.
And at the centre of that work is the HAEU Digital Archives Management System – DAMS.
From digital files to trustworthy records
A file can survive technically while losing much of its value as archival evidence. If its provenance, context or relationships are lost, it may remain readable but no longer tell the story it was created to tell.
At the HAEU, we have developed our DAMS to diminish the risk of this happening.
To be clear, the DAMS is much more than a storage environment or software application. It refers to the wider digital preservation environment as a whole: the technologies, storage infrastructure, workflows, metadata, procedures, governance arrangements and professional practices that together support the long-term preservation and accessibility of digital archives.
It is the environment in which digital archival records can be received, checked, documented, processed for preservation and ultimately made accessible while maintaining the information required to understand and trust them over time.
Within this wider environment, dedicated applications such as Archivematica and AtoM support specific preservation and archival description functions.
In executing these workflows, archivists can validate and check digital objects for integrity, document their preservation actions, maintain metadata, and create and manage preservation packages over time.
For us, therefore, preserving context is as important as preserving bits.
Building trust over time
Digital preservation is not a single action carried out when a record enters the archive. It is an ongoing process.
Integrity must be demonstrable. Preservation actions must be controlled and traceable. Metadata must accompany the records it describes. File formats and technological dependencies need to be monitored, and systems themselves must evolve as technology changes.
The HAEU DAMS is designed in line with internationally recognised digital preservation standards and good practices, drawing on frameworks such as the meta-reference model standard ISO 14721:2025 OAIS (Open Archival Information System) and using established metadata standards including PREMIS (PREservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies), METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard), EAD (Encoded Archival Description) and DC (Dublin Core) to support interoperability, traceability and long-term preservation. It is continually developed and reviewed.
Our long-term ambition is to strengthen this environment further towards the characteristics expected of a Trusted Digital Repository: demonstrable integrity, documented and repeatable processes, robust governance, controlled preservation actions and reliable long-term access.
Trust, in this context, is not something a repository can simply claim. It must be built through procedures, evidence and continuous monitoring.
This is also why digital preservation cannot be separated from broader questions of risk management, system resilience and organisational governance.
Introducing upstream preservation
One of the most important lessons from our work is that preservation begins well before a digital object enters the preservation system.
The HAEU preserves the historical archives of the EU Institutions and Agencies. It works, within the relevant legal and partnership frameworks, with these bodies to support the long-term preservation and accessibility of their historical archives. This cooperation, particularly with the EU Agencies, has increasingly focused on preparing digital records upstream.
Guidelines, checklists, metadata mapping and structured transfer information at fonds, series and file level help establish a common framework for preparing historical digital records. Requirements concerning formats, metadata, archival context, documentation and secure transfer are addressed before preservation workflows begin.
This reduces one of the most serious risks in digital preservation: receiving technically intact files that have already lost the contextual information needed to understand them.
The work is necessarily collaborative.
Records managers and archivists within the originating organisations understand how records were created and used. The HAEU contributes the archival and preservation perspective needed to support their long-term authenticity, accessibility and interpretation.
The DAMS is therefore not an isolated technical endpoint. It is one component of a wider preservation ecosystem extending from records creation and management to historical preservation and future access.
Quality, risk and resilience
Long-term digital preservation also depends on the quality of the processes surrounding the technology.
At the HAEU, compliance with ISO 9001 supports documentation, monitoring and continuous improvement of processes, including those connected with digital preservation. This reinforces consistency, traceability and periodic review.
Preservation also requires attention to storage, continuity of service, recovery, technological obsolescence and security.
For this reason, the Historical Archives’ evolution of the DAMS is embedded within a broader risk-management framework rather than treated as a purely technical project.
Additional issues, such as sustainability and resilience have also entered the equation. Through initiatives such as the SAGA (Sustainable Archives and Greener Approaches) project, we work with other European archives to examine how archival preservation can address environmental risks and long-term sustainability challenges.
The technologies will continue to change.
The responsibility to preserve the evidence will not.
Saving Europe’s future memory
Many digital records appear ordinary when they are created: a document, a dataset, a collection of files, a set of metadata.
Decades from now, they may provide the evidence through which researchers understand how European institutions and bodies made decisions, responded to challenges and shaped European society.
This illustrates why the theme of World Digital Preservation Day 2026 — “Save Our Stories: Our Digital Heritage in Danger” — directly impacts our work.
Saving our stories means more than storing digital objects.
It means preserving their integrity, their context and the relationships that allow them to remain trustworthy and meaningful.
At the HAEU, the DAMS is one of the principal tools we use to ensure that today's digital records become part of Europe’s permanent historical memory.
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