Museum of Fine Arts, Houston selects Preservica to future-proof vital digital records

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) turns to Preservica to ensure that digital records of the institution, lectures, and exhibitions are securely preserved and accessible for future generations.

Preservica, a world leader in digital preservation technology, research, and consulting, is pleased to announce that the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) has selected Preservica to digitally preserve its important digital assets. This includes long-term institutional records, correspondence of the directors, official meeting minutes, conservation records, exhibition images and labels, recordings of cultural lectures, architectural drawings and press releases – amounting to a collection of thousands of valuable digital assets that is growing every day.

Established in 1900, the MFAH is the largest cultural institution in the southwest region of the US. The MFAH houses a repertory cinema, two significant research libraries, public archives, and a conservation and storage facility. The encyclopedic collections of the MFAH span world cultures dating from antiquity to the present and include in-depth holdings of American art, European paintings, pre-Columbian and African gold, decorative arts and design, photography, prints and drawings, modern and contemporary painting and sculpture, and Latin American art.

Lorraine A. Stuart, Chief of Archives at MFAH explains, “The digital record of our lectures, exhibitions, and proceedings being created today will become the digital history of tomorrow. Previously, we were storing these vital digital assets on a shared network drive; however, using the OAIS (Open Archival Information Systems) reference model as a guide we knew that this was not a robust solution for long-term preservation. In particular, without metadata, content was difficult to find and search, but more importantly we did not have a mechanism for migrating file formats over time to ensure our digital assets remained useable and readable into the future.”

Stuart adds, “Preservica was the solution that came nearest to meeting all of our needs, and also has an intuitive easy-to-use interface. We also liked the fact that we could use Preservica on our local servers and storage media but still have the flexibility of storing content in the cloud if we need to. As we move forward, I can also see how we can use Preservica’s Universal Access module to provide wider access to our digital content.”

Preservica Chief Executive Jon Tilbury adds, “We are delighted that the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has chosen Preservica Standard Edition as the trusted digital preservation repository to store, classify, and provide access to their digital assets. The MFAH joins a growing community of leading museums that use Preservica to future-proof and protect their vital digital content and records. We also look forward to the museum’s contribution to the Preservica User Group and its help in shaping the future of digital preservation”.

Preservica Standard Edition is built around the same proven digital preservation technology in use at national archives, libraries and museums. It includes a full suite of OAIS (Open Archival Information Systems) workflows for ingest, management, storage, access, and preservation of digital content. The solution is designed to be hosted on-premise but also includes storage policy management tools and connectors to enable organizations to build “hybrid” storage models that combine local and cloud storage options.

Learn more about at Preservica Standard Edition https://preservica.com/digital-archive-software

About the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Tracing its origins to 1900, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is one of the largest cultural institutions in the country. Its main campus is located in the heart of Houston’s Museum District and comprises the Audrey Jones Beck Building, the Caroline Wiess Law Building, the Glassell School of Art, and the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden. The Beck and Law buildings are connected underground by the Wilson Tunnel, which features James Turrell’s iconic installation The Light Inside. Additional resources include a repertory cinema, two significant libraries, and public archives. Nearby, two house museums—Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, and Rienzi—present collections of American and European decorative arts. The encyclopedic collections of the MFAH are especially strong in Pre-Columbian and African gold; Renaissance and Baroque painting and sculpture; 19th- and 20th-century art; photography; and Latin American art. The MFAH is also home to the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), a leading research institute for 20th-century Latin American and Latino art. www.mfah.org

About Preservica

Preservica is a world leader in digital preservation technology, consulting and research. Our active preservation solutions are used by leading businesses, archives, libraries, museums and government organizations globally, to safeguard and share valuable digital content, collections and electronic records, for decades to come. These include 16 US State Archives, the UK National Archives, the UK Met Office, Transport for London, Oxfordshire County Council, Suffolk County Council and the Dorset History Centre, part of Dorset County Council, to name a few. Available on premise or in the cloud, Preservica’s award-winning digital preservation and access software is a complete, standards-based (OAIS ISO 14721) trusted repository that includes connectors to leading Enterprise Content and Records Management systems to ensure long-term usability, trustworthiness and preservation of vital digital records, emails and content.

Visit www.preservica.com

Media Contacts: Preservica

Maria Doyle
781-964-3536
maria@doylestratcomm.com