ID: 16

OLIVER, Gilian

Curriculum

I currently teach and conduct research in records and archives at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. My most recent professional experience prior to this was as part of the foundation team established to initiate digital archiving capability at New Zealand's national archives. I have extensive experience in online distance education and am particularly interested in the challenges of developing and building innovative and vibrant professional communities in a small country context.
My PhD is from Monash University, and this doctoral study was the catalyst for my ongoing research agenda in organizational culture and information culture. I am editor of the New Zealand archivists' professional journal, Archifacts, and an editor-in-chief of Archival Science.

Title:

Digital Preservation in the Cloud

Brief summary:

A case study of the decision to outsource storage of New Zealand's National Digital Heritage Archive to a commercial provider.

Content:

As part of its response to the global financial crisis, the New Zealand government embarked on a programme to transform the public sector.  A key strategy in that transformation was the achievement of economy of scale by using shared services.  In August 2011 the government announced the adoption of cloud computing across all government departments, which was forecast to save $250 million expenditure over the next ten years.  The National Digital Heritage Archive (NDHA) was selected as an initial pilot study in implementation.

The NDHA is a digital preservation and management system for New Zealand’s digital content.  Originally implemented for the National Library of New Zealand’s collections, the core software and hardware has been further developed to incorporate Archives New Zealand’s digital records.  The exploration of the decision and its consequences to outsource NDHA storage to a commercial provider provides a real life case study to inform the development of policy and legislation. 

This paper will describe the background to the decision to outsource, and the consequences of that decision.  

Scientific contribution:

This paper will provide a real life case study to inform decision making in a domain that is relevant internationally.  New Zealand's response to the global financial crisis of mandating the use of shared services by government departments is not unique, and learnings from the experiences of the NDHA will be very valuable to other jurisdictions.

Keywords:

Cloud computing, digital preservation, digital archives, digital repository