Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew selects Arkivum for assured digital data archiving

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew has selected Arkivum/100 for its long-term data storage and archive solution.

Kew has made significant IT investment in creating digital representations of physical objects contained within its collections so as to be able to archive them and make them widely accessible for the future. The largest and fastest growing volume of data has been generated by the digitisation of the Herbarium Specimen Collection. In addition to the preservation of this scientific digital collection, the system is also being used to archive digitised text that forms part of a collection of personal letters from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Kew is implementing Arkivum/100 and integrating it with the Aetopia Digital Asset Management system. The system will facilitate Kew in the sharing of digital images and digitised text from a number of its heritage and scientific collections that have immense scientific, cultural and public significance. Arkivum/100, certified to ISO 27001, the internationally recognised data security standard, delivers 100% integrity assured, long-term and secure data archiving.

The Arkivum solution provides Kew with 100 terabytes of archive storage over eight years with future storage expansion of a similar size expected in the near future. With the system now commissioned, the sheer volume of data means that it is estimated that it will now take the staff at Kew nine months to move the data into the archive system. The system provides a 100% data integrity guarantee through the storage of multiple copies of Kew's digital data in geographically disparate locations along with an offsite, offline escrow copy lodged with a third party.

“The investment that Kew has made in Arkivum/100 as part of the project to digitally represent its physical objects is significant,” commented Steve Mackey, VP Sales for Heritage & Culture at Arkivum. “It forms a key part of its ability to share digitised images and text. The long-term sharing initiative is secured and backed by the Arkivum 100% data integrity guarantee that underpins the trustworthiness and authenticity of Kew’s digital data.”