Cloud offers sunny outlook for Met Office historical meteorological records

The Met Office chooses Preservica to digitally preserve and make publicly available historical climate and weather publications

Met Office, UK

The Met Office has selected Preservica, Tessella’s cloud-based digital preservation service, to take it into the digital era and facilitate the preservation of both born digital publications and also scanned versions of original unique meteorological records.

Sarah Pankiewicz, Library and Archive Manager at the Met Office explains why the Met Office chose Preservica.

“The National Meteorological Archive provides public access to the memory, insights and observations of the UK weather and some of our material predates the founding of the Met Office.

Our records show how the science of meteorology has developed, as well as recording the weather as observed over long periods of time. For example if you look back at scientific reports that were written 20 years ago you will see where our understanding of the climate and our numerical modelling capabilities were, compared with now.

The National Meteorological Archives is already a legal “place of deposit” for physical records. This means it holds public records of national importance and conforms to the requirements of The Public Records Act and standards laid down by The National Archives. Preservica will allow us to meet these requirements for our digital records and will help in our aim to become a “digital place of deposit”.

We did some market testing first, trying to find a tool that not only preserved our digital records for many years to come but that also offered the potential for public access. Largely, our main concerns were that the material is stored safely and offered digital continuity, that the solution should facilitate preservation and easy access, and that it is able to keep up with any changes in technology. Preservica stood out from all other solutions and addressed these concerns in a fairly seamless way.”

Jon Tilbury, Director of Archiving Solutions for Tessella commented: “The Met Office is a globally respected organisation so we are thrilled that it has chosen Preservica to safeguard these precious meteorological records and to be part of their plans to be a national digital repository.”

Jon continued: “Preservica really lowers the barriers to entry for organizations looking for full life cycle digital archiving and is suitable for commercial organizations or public institutions, in fact anyone who wants a high quality digital archiving system. Preservica is available via an affordable yearly subscription for the full application.”

Preservica is based on the advanced Safety Deposit Box (SDB) technology in use at leading National Archives and Libraries, making the same level of digital preservation service available to business, organizations, and memory institutions that need to protect their digital wealth without incurring all the human capital costs of running such a specialist service.

Notes to the Media

About Digital Preservation at Tessella
Tessella is a world leader in digital preservation solutions, technology, consulting and research. Customers across 4 continents rely on our products to preserve their priceless digital information. Our solutions range from our cloud based Software as a Service offering, Preservica, to custom on premise installations of Tessella SDB. In 2011 Tessella and the UK National Archives won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category for Tessella SDB the technology behind Preservica.

Media Contact
Tessella
Christina Tealdi | Senior PR and Marketing Communications Manager | Phone: +44 (0) 1235 546638 | Mobile: +44 (0) 779 9346453 | pressoffice@tessella.com

About the Met Office
Founded in 1854, the Met Office is a Trading Fund within the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and a world leader in providing weather and climate services. The National Meteorological Library is based at the Met Office HQ and together with the archive nearby they hold one of the country’s most comprehensive collections on meteorology, vital for facilitating learning and maintaining the public memory of the weather.
Alongside the published sources held in the library, the National Meteorological Archive holds a vast collection of unique material including original climate returns and registers, sunshine and rainfall cards, synoptic charts, ships logs and private weather diaries.

Contact Info:
Email to metlib@metoffice.gov.uk and
Web site: www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/...