About the seminar

The National Archives recently stated: “one of the biggest challenges in digital archiving: the records are intangible and so they could be vulnerable to changes that might be made without detection and on a huge scale. It means that the records you are looking at might not be the same as the records that were archived 20 years ago. In other words history, might be rewritten.” With other challenges including what to select and the costs of copying and managing vast volumes of data over decades and centuries, does the whole concept of a permanent computer record need re-assessing? Our speaker will discuss these issues and why digital archives are important to the world of 2020 and beyond.

About the speaker

David Ryan is Director of Cyber Strategy for Templar Executives, and was formerly Director of Information Assurance at the Royal Household. As Head of Digital Preservation at the UK National Archives, he led the team that won a Queen’s Award for Technology in 2011 and the 2004 Pilgrims Trust Award for Digital Preservation.

A commercial version of the Digital Archive is available from Preservica – see preservica.com/digital-archive-software-1 .

David’s work on PRONOM was a subject of Elizabeth Orna’s book Making Knowledge Visible: Communicating Knowledge Through Information Products Published in 2004 by Gower.

PRONOM is available at: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/PRONOM/Default.aspx .

Prior to joining The National Archives, David was Head of Information Management at Pfizer Ltd., where he successfully introduced a major change programme in the management of electronic records.

A graduate of King’s College, London, he also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Archive Studies from University College, London.