Amnesty International creates new human rights digital archive

Bryony Hooper, archivist to Amnesty's international secretariat, speaks to Computer Weekly about the “great fear” that all in her profession have about the preservation gap that could be opened up by digital.

“We know how to look after parchment and papyrus, but fear a gap opening up with electronic media,” she says.

After all, have you tried opening up one of your old WordPerfect documents recently? Or looking for a slot to stick a floppy disk into?

The context of Amnesty’s deal with Preservica is, says Hooper, “a shift to all work being in the digital realm in recent years”. She adds: “The document might never be printed out. We need to maintain the integrity of the document and a record of it.