British Telecommunications Archives selects Preservica for digital preservation of unique historical collections dating back to the birth of telecommunications.

British Telecommunications (BT) will use Preservica Enterprise Edition to ensure its extensive multi-media archive of its heritage and the development of telecommunications in Britain since the 1800s is accessible for future generations.

Oxford, UK and Washington DC, US | 21 April 2015 | Preservica, part of the Tessella group, and a world leader in digital preservation technology, research and consulting, is pleased to announce that British Telecommunications plc (BT) has chosen Preservica Enterprise Edition as the trusted digital repository for the unique and extensive collections held by BT Archives of photographs, documents, films, digitised phone books, correspondence and other public records dating back to1846. The collection includes hundreds of thousands of digitised and born-digital objects across tens of Terabytes of storage.

BT, the world’s oldest telecommunications company and one of the world’s leading providers of communications services, has made a public commitment to preserve and make accessible its heritage and Britain’s pioneering telecommunications history on behalf of the nation. The BT Archives collections are recognized by UNESCO and Arts Council England as a vital part of the UK’s national cultural and artistic heritage The digital collections include: films dating back to the 1930s; a near complete set of digitised phone books from 1880 to 1984; documents relating to the foundation in 1846 of the Electric Telegraph company, BT’s ultimate ancestor company and the world’s first national telecoms network provider; tens of thousands of historical images including streets scenes dating back to the mid nineteenth century; hundreds of policy files dating to the 1840s on all aspects of UK and international telecoms services by BT and its predecessors; and other public records produced before the privatisation of BT which are held under the Public Records Acts.

David Hay, Head of Heritage and Archives at BT adds “We wanted to ensure that our valuable digital archives and collections were safe for the long term, and in particular, that we had a way to manage and migrate between file formats so our collections would remain accessible for future generations. Preservica’s active digital preservation technology was designed to do just that, and is a proven and established solution in use at many major archives, including The National Archives in the UK”

Preservica Chief Executive Jon Tilbury adds, “We are delighted that BT have chosen to join the growing number of Business and Corporate archives using Preservica to safeguard and provide access to their unique and extensive collections. We also look forward to BT’s contribution to the Preservica User Group and in helping to shape the future of digital preservation”.

Aimed at larger organisations, Preservica Enterprise Edition includes a full suite of customisable OAIS (Open Archival Information System) conforming workflows for ingest, management, storage, administration, preservation and access to digital content as well as off-the-shelf connectors and open APIs for easy integration with existing platforms and systems. The solution is designed to be hosted on premise but also includes storage policy management tools and connectors to enable organisations to build “hybrid” storage models that combine local and cloud storage options.

Learn more at: http://preservica.com/edition/enterprise-edition/

Notes to the Media

About Preservica

Preservica is a world leader in digital preservation technology, consulting and research. Our active preservation solutions are used by leading archives, libraries, museums, government organizations and businesses across 4 continents to safeguard and share their valuable digital content, collections and electronic records for decades to come.

The award-winning Preservica Active Preservation and Access technology is available in cloud hosted and on premise Editions and includes a full suite of OAIS (Open Archival Information System) compliant workflows for ingest, management, storage, access and long-term preservation of digital content.

Preservica invests in many research initiatives in digital preservation and is a well-respected member of many international collaborations with academia, archives, libraries and corporations at the leading edge of this emerging field.

Preservica is part of Tessella group, the international analytics, software services and consultancy company.

Visit www.preservica.com

About BT

BT is one of the world’s leading providers of communications services and solutions, serving customers in more than 170 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to its customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband and internet products and services and converged fixed/mobile products and services. BT consists principally of five lines of business: BT Global Services, BT Business, BT Consumer, BT Wholesale and Openreach.

In the year ended 31 March 2014, BT Group’s reported revenue was £18,287m with profit before taxation of £2,312m. British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York. For more information, visit www.btplc.com

About BT Heritage & Archives

BT‟s commitment to its heritage is published in its Heritage Policy. BT is the only major company to have made such a public commitment to safeguard its heritage on behalf of the nation. BT continues to fulfil this long-standing commitment to preserve and make accessible Britain’s rich telecommunications history, still being made today.

In 2011, BT’s research records collection, 1879-1995 was one of those selected from the UK’s libraries, archives and museums to represent the outstanding heritage of the United Kingdom in the UNESCO UK Memory of the World Register www.unesco.org.uk/uk_memory_of_the_world_register. All BT’s archives were awarded Designated status by Arts Council England in 2012 in recognition of the outstanding importance of the collections as part of the country’s cultural heritage. BT Archives is one of only very few corporate archives to have received these accolades.

www.bt.com/archives

Media Contacts: Preservica

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