University of Texas Libraries Partnership

Preservation Needs

The WITNESS Media Archive’s tape-based raw footage originates on relatively fragile consumer-grade formats, including Video8, Hi-8, VHS-C, and miniDV. Despite climate-controlled archival storage, these tapes are at risk of deterioration over time. The best way to preserve the valuable human rights documentation on these tapes is through high-quality digitization/digital capture.

Digital content, which includes both digitized videotapes and born-digital video files, is no less vulnerable. Technological obsolescence, patents and proprietary systems, hardware failure and “bit rot” can make digital content inaccessible. You have likely experienced the fragility of digital content if you have ever tried to use computer files created perhaps only 10 years ago.

Keeping the content of a digital file intact and usable requires sustained management throughout its lifecycle. This includes regular integrity checks, copying to different locations, format migration, metadata updates, and maintenance of an appropriate technological infrastructure.

Long-Term Preservation Partner

Maintaining and managing the long-term accessibility of our digital collection requires infrastructure and resources beyond what WITNESS can provide on its own.

For this reason, we have partnered with the University of Texas Libraries’ (UTL) Human Rights Documentation Initiative (HRDI) at to serve as the digital preservation repository for the Media Archive.

The HRDI aims to preserve records of human rights struggles worldwide, promote the use of human rights archival materials, and to further human rights research and advocacy.

Some of their other work includes preservation/access projects with the Free Burma Rangers, Kigali Memorial Centre, and the Texas After Violence Project. The HRDI bases its partnerships on a “non-custodial model,” meaning that while the HRDI provides archival management and oversight, records remain in the custody of their creators.

In our case, WITNESS and its partners will retain ownership and custody of our video content, but will deposit high-quality copies and catalog records to UTL for long-term safekeeping. The lifecycle management and metadata model for the this project is outlined in “Human Rights Documentation Initiative Metadata Guidelines for Video.” (PDF)

Illustration by: The DCC Curation Lifecycle Model. © Digital Curation Centre