How do we use the latest advances in scientific and conservation practice to preserve the physical record for future generations?

Background

Our first duty under the Public Records Act is to “take all practicable steps for the preservation of records” in our care, to secure them for future generations. This includes the physical care of our ever-growing collection of analogue records, and also includes the selection, transfer and preservation of a digital public record that is growing exponentially year-on-year, and which exists in a world where trust in the veracity of information is more valuable than ever, because it is under threat. We must become a ‘living digital national archive’ by instinct and design.

This research theme captures our challenges in appraisal, selection and sensitivity review, as we expand our archival practice to include new collections and real-time published court judgements, in becoming the ‘archive not just of government but of the state’; the use of technology, including AI, to help make decisions about what should be transferred to the archive; and the need to preserve physical and digital records, including AI models, independently of the software that was used to create them.

This must happen within a clear policy and legal framework, where the imperative to govern openly and the rights of individuals to control their own data sometimes exist in tension.