Blavatnik Archive Foundation

The situation

The Blavatnik Archive Foundation holds a large historical archive of documents, photographs and audio and video recordings, in more than one language. Its staff needed one system to catalog the collection in detail, and a public digital archive where researchers and the public could find and study the material.

What we built

• A collections management system where staff describe items, people, places and rights, with review and approval before anything is published.
• Public archive websites built on the same catalog, working with the foundation's design partners.
• High-resolution image viewing using IIIF, so documents and photographs can be examined closely online.
• Search with Elasticsearch, including filters, so a large catalog can be explored quickly.
• Persistent links for citing items, and connections to transcription and text-recognition services.
• Stories, maps and timelines on the public sites, built from the same catalog.
• One code base serving more than one public site, each with its own design and content.
• The Refuseniks and Activists project: a website, and the workflows partner organizations use to upload and exchange records.

Researchers and the public now use the archive online, and staff catalog, review and publish in the same system.

Keeping it running

We continue to develop and support the system. We fix problems, add the features staff ask for, run the infrastructure on Amazon Web Services, and plan upgrades so the platform stays supported. Work is planned each year with the foundation's staff.

Archive systems are long-term commitments, and most of the work happens after launch. We have worked on this archive for more than ten years.

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