What records will remain of today’s European institutions in fifty years? In one hundred? Increasingly, the decisions, activities and evidence that document the history of the European Union (EU) are created and managed digitally. Yet digital records do not survive simply because the files themselves persist.
Formats change. Systems are replaced. Metadata can become separated from the records it describes. Links between documents may disappear, and with them the evidence needed to understand who created a record, why it was created and how it relates to other records. At the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) in Florence, this challenge lies at the heart of our digital preservation work.