South Australian technology company Parashift has been chosen to help streamline the digitisation and cataloguing of artefacts for the world’s largest collection of material relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and knowledge, held by The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS).

AIATSIS holds a collection of approximately one million objects together with the accompanying documentation. Digitisation of this collection began in 2001 and in many areas has become a race against time as fragile formats deteriorate. As the project progressed and technology and standards evolved, it was recognised that more sophisticated tools would be required to manage the process.

AIATSIS Executive Director of Collections Lyndall Osborne said after approval was given last year to seek a suitable solution, manufacturers from across the world were invited to submit solutions that might satisfy the Institute’s unique requirements.

“Our project team met with every business unit to form a detailed set of requirements. A number of the proposals were explored in depth and ultimately it was determined the Alfresco DAMs/EDRMs solution proposed by Parashift would provide the best possible outcomes for AIATSIS,” Ms Osborne said.

Parashift Managing Director Kieren Fitzpatrick said the specially tailored solution will provide many benefits for AIATSIS.

“We’ve added modules to customise the product including an open source analytics system to better manage, prioritise and provide real-time reporting on the digitising progress, a business process management system, as well as a very powerful searching and indexing tool,” said Mr Fitzpatrick.

“The new DAMs/EDRMs will provide a single index for all of AIATSIS’ information – documents, digital assets and records. This will facilitate greater collaboration across the Institute and enable more sophisticated workflows. Instead of people emailing back and forth, or updating spreadsheets, many of these processes will be automated. People will be freed to focus on digitising the collection.”

 “An open source analytics system we chose will give the Institute even greater insight into the progress of digitisation so it can prioritise resources better based on real-time reporting on the digitising progress.

“AIATSIS will also benefit from two other modules, a business process management system and a very powerful searching and indexing tool,” said Mr Fitzpatrick.

Parashift is based in Adelaide but works with private sector and government clients Australia-wide.