General Scheme of System Operation
Perhaps no project of digitisation in the world have had a continuity as extended as that of Archivo General de Indias (A.G.I.). At least in the area of the historical Archives. The two more projects ambitious of the moment (1986), the ODISS of the National Archives of Washington, and that of computerisation of the Municipal Archives of Utrecht were a long time ago abandoned or changed. Other pilot projects of the moment (Library of Congres for example) were also abandoned or substituted progressively by other projects. The advance of the technology in this sense was relentless, inexorable, leaving in the gutter many attempts.
In 1994, Jean-Paul Oddos, of the Bibliotéque Nationale de France, was writing:
«Ce projet de numérisation des A.G.I., tel que nous le découvrons aujourd'hui, apppelle une réflexion approfondie chez les professionels des archives et des bibliothèques: nous pouvons en effet observer, en situation réelle, sur une collection ouverte á la recherche, l'impact des 'nouvelles techniques'».
"This A.G.I. digitisation project, as we meet it today, stimulate a deep reflection in the area of archives and libraries: actually we can observe, in real circumstances, over a collection open to research, the new technologies impact"
But from this date the project has followed its way until today, though personally I am going only to analyse with detail the situation until Jun 1997, when I left the A.G.I direction. Of the current situation I can not speak deeply.
We can assert that this project, as I have said in other place, represents the most important and continued effort of application of new technologies to Historical Archives. In this project we can analyse all the different phases of the process: from the first idea of its inception, until the obtaining of results on the part of the users during a long period of years, going through all the problems of its maintenance, update and implementation of operations to solve the obsolescence problems of hardware, software and media.
The project was begun in 1986. During half a dozen years we were working in the design and development of an integrated system of automated management for historical documents, that had no important precedents in the professional environment. The technology was in continuous growth, but the digital image and massive storage systems of information were yet in technological immaturity phase.
In spite of this in the year 1992, such as was anticipated, the system was installed in the Archivo, affecting really to all the aspects of its daily operation. The internal job, the tasks of documents arrangement and description, the elaboration of finding aids, the information service, everything is fully based since then on the potentials of the system. The access to the information on the part of the researchers in the Reading Rooms of the A.G.I., is accomplished also through the system, using principally the eleven million of digitised document pages.
With this the whole life of the Archivo is strongly affected. Changes must be made, a new organisation of the work is required, new staff with technological background is needed. And the personal already existing must be recycled.
Furthermore the new consultation system, and especially the incorporation and use of the digital image, provokes a radical change in the form of access to the information on the part of the users. This also involves modifying some of the traditional routines of the Centre.
And at last, preservation of the documents has been also favourably impacted from the moment in which a good part of the original documents, some papers with several centuries of longevity, are not going to be consulted any more directly by the researcher to be substituted by digital images in the reading room.
The results are there: we are going briefly to see some statistics figures that can show us the improvements in quality and speed access to the information, the benefits for the conservation of the original documents, and benefits for management of the same Centre.
But everybody knows the accused actual obsolescence of hardware, software and media. It is well known the little permanence of the current media, as compared to the many centuries in which it can be estimated the longevity of a parchment or of a paper of the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. But it is a more urgent problem the obsolescence that affects to the new technological systems quickly surpassed by following generations. This is really a big problem that the A.G.I. had to face, launching several operations of technology refreshment and of information migration.
At last, the technological advances in the world of the telecommunications and especially the big bang of Internet, outline a new challenge that in the moment of the beginning of the project was not a high-priority topic, but that the time has converted into indispensable operation: the distance access to the information, the consultation through the communication networks, with all the technological, budgetary, managerial, legal problems, etc. that this involves.
It is evident that the dynamism of the incorporation to the new technologies affects to all the aspects of the life of the centres and compels to establish new strategies that with difficulty we could imagine till now in so traditional environments as that of the historical Archives.
In order to analyse the principal "long term" aspects, in relationship to the project of the Archivo General de Indias, we want, and it is indispensable in these sessions devoted generally to "digitisation of documents", to make some precision about the specific characteristics of the project, that difference it of other projects.In the first place it must be understood as a project of computerisation of historical Archives, whose documentary series were closed a century ago, this is, the last documents correspond to the final years of the nineteenth century. It is a closed Archive, that hardly receives new acquisitions, and that constitutes by its antiquity an important part of the historical documentary heritage not only Spanish, but we can say universal in certain measure. We must emphasise because of this the importance of the aspect of preservation of cultural patrimony, reflected in unique documents. The importance will be principally in the conservation of the original papers, not in the conservation of any copy or substitute of the original that will be used on the contrary with the basic goal of the diffusion of the information contained in the documents.
Other characteristic very important to take into account is related to the circumstances of the origin of the project, that explain the reason of the fact that is accomplished in Spain so ambitious project of pioneer use of new technologies in the field so often forgotten of ancient historical documents: Celebration of the V Centennial of the Discovery of America. The acts of this celebration were supposing a singular collaboration to entities of all type (cultural, entrepreneurial, political, etc.) that could take advantage of the possibilities that was offering a fact of so much public relevancy. The Archivo General de Indias, goal of so many researchers all over the world, with its full shelving of fundamental documents for the study of the Discovery and, more generally, of all the America history, was offering a magnificent field to accomplish activities, with the additional advantage of being located in Seville, the city of the principal act of the celebrations, the Universal Exhibition, Expo92. Because of this the A.G.I. served of encounter point so that three different institutions could sign and agreement in the objective of accomplishing a unique project: a public institution (Ministry of Culture, headline of the Archivo), a cultural institution without profitable purpose (Fundación Ramón Areces) and a high technology company (IBM Spain). This public-private partnership was critical for obtaining the strong investments that the project was requiring.
A third characteristic to emphasise is the extent of the objective initial of the project: it is not considered a project of digitisation, but of computerisation of all the functions of a historical Archive. The goal was to create an integrated system of automated information, that would be capable of attending all the different aspect of the operation of the A.G.I., from the user management, to the documents description or consultation.
These functions can be summarised in:
A last characteristic we want to emphasise here: the public celebration circumstances of the year 1992 that before we have underlined and the important cultural patronage operation that the project supposes, lead us to expose an initial exigency of the system that determines its design and development. Concrete dates of ending the project and results public presentation: it was indispensable to present in 1992 a system that was already installed and operating in the A.G.I., but that, in addition to be advanced from the technological point of view, could be more than a simple empty container to begin to fill. It was a strict condition that it had already incorporated great quantity of information from the first moment of its opening. This was outlining us several, in some way, opposite conditions, as the need of delaying some technological decisions as much as possible so that in the year 1992 the system were not already aged and obsolete. Or the need of progressing simultaneously in the design and development of the system and at the same time in the massive data entry, so that in 1992 in the same moment in which the system were put on real operation in the A.G.I., it had already a great quantity of digital information available for the users.
It can be supposed that the problems were very assorted in the moment of beginning the design of the system and to define the strategies and roads to advance. We are going to summarise some of them.
Briefly, the fundamental goal of the system was to design, develop and implement in the Archivo an automated information system, capable of integrated management of the two most common functions of a historical Archive:
During the first phase, 1986-1992, these objectives can be explained in this way:
Only some words about the general system architecture, designed in modular form, based on the idea of distributed processing and client/server architecture. From the user point of view, the system consists of three modules, each of which covers a different group of functions:
In 1992, the initial objectives were met, the system was installed at the AGI, opened to the consultation and research, and a new phase of consolidation, and enhancement and update began. Then the basic objectives changed. At that time the A.G.I. was in a privilege situation with advanced and effective new technology tools. But founded doubts were existing about the possibility of having only a one day flower and that the project could be abandoned quickly by lack of human or economic resources. The project had been developed by an exceptional agreement between three very different institutions that were providing the necessary resources. But when the agreement had finished, what was going to happen?
General Scheme of System
Operation
In order to face the situation, we advanced in several roads:
We are not going to enter here in exposing what at this time the professional literature is saying on the struggle strategies against the obsolescence, that has been converted into the great danger of our information systems: technology refreshment, migration, software emulation...
The A.G.I. project had a serious risk in this area: the system was conceived in 1986, but it had to be installed in 1992, and there was the risk of opening an already obsolete system in the moment of its official inauguration.
The A.G.I. therefore must be faced quickly with this problem. We can not extend us in giving details, but we must give some data of the performances carried out.
We have said also that the A.G.I. system was developed in a proprietary environment, concerning hardware and software. The AS – 400 from IBM was the server equipment for the databases, the OS2 was the operative system of the PS/2 workstation connected to a Token Ring.
Also in this area some measures have been taken, though the A.G.I. does not have all the subsequent updates undertaken by the software developers.
During the years when the A.G.I. system was designed and developed, no priority was assigned to long distance access. On the contrary all the emphasis was on the development of a system for the integral management of the Archives, though several possibilities were analysed and some little experiences were implemented.
But with the passage of the time, the globalisation, the extension of the networks and specially the massive emergence of the Internet, impelled to the new open environment. In the year 1996 we were designing a project in three phases and two years, that would have allowed to advance step by step in the incorporation of the A.G.I. to the new world of the communication networks, solving previously all the different problems (technical, managerial, of safety, of intellectual property and ownership of some documents that constitute a most important cultural patrimony).
In this project we had the collaboration of the Foundation Ramón Areces (one of the partners of the first project and owner of Informática El Corte Inglés) and an agreement with Teléfonica (the principal Spanish Telecommunications Company) was under way. The objective was, as said, to advance step by step, solving each one of the different problems. The idea was to launch in the country a professional discussion on the convenience of free opening 11 million of pages through Internet (yes? no?, which control or condition?, etc.). And the incorporation to the project from the beginning of several historical Archives of national character also was intended. Progressively other cultural institutions could join the project in the second phase, until the total opening with the conditions decided in the last step.
This project, in which I was personally involved, was supposing a new and important renovation of the system, in addition to a new leadership of the A.G.I. It stopped in 1997, though probably it will be taken up again in a reduced timeline order to present some news in the next International Congress on Archives that will take place in Seville the next September.
The long permanence of the project from the beginning and over all its use day after day in the Reading Room from 1992 allows us to analyse the results in practice. And besides the benefits for management and internal work in the Archive, we can specially present some statistical figures, that confirms us the importance of the operation:
