Atos Origin partners the National Library of France in realising an innovative solution for long-term preservation of cultural heritage

Paris, Atos Origin, an international IT services company, partners the National Library of France (BnF) in implementing an unparalleled long-term digital preservation solution for its digital holdings, a first worldwide.SPAR (Système de Préservation et d’Archivage Réparti – Distributed Preservation and Archiving System) was launched in May 2010 and already holds 30,000 works. This represents a volume of around 6 terabytes, and is expected to reach 1,800 terabytes in 2014.

The development of SPAR created in Open Source, is structured around two basic axes:

* to enrich the data that should be preserved by matching it to a metadata system
* to free it from media, formats and usages whose obsolescence inevitably cause the irretrievable loss of information.

Thanks to this smart storage, the integrity, readability and comprehensibility of information will be assured despite the evolution of technologies and access modalities in the future.

The importance of preserving and enhancing cultural heritage from the dawn of civilisation is shared by the entire international community. At the same time, the arrival of Internet has revolutionised access to art wealth by allowing anyone, from anywhere, to discover countless treasures, provided they are accessible on the Web, i.e. digitalised. The physical restoration of works, mass digitalisation, maximum preservation and easy access for all to cultural heritage have become national and global issues.

“Atos Origin is pleased to be closely associated with the National Library of France in terms of digital strategy. A project of this scale has come about thanks to the exceptional cooperation between the BnF’s and Atos Origin’s business and technological teams, who have drawn on agile methodology. We are confident that, by the ingenuity of its architecture, its scalability and its soundness, this digital sustainability solution is the best at the present time, and will serve as a reference for all players confronted with the same challenges as the BnF both in Europe and Worldwide” says Hervé de Colnet, Public Sector Market Director, Atos Origin France.

Further information is available on the website: www.bnf.fr

About Atos Origin
With more than 1,000 ECM experts, Atos Origin is one of the leading service providers able to implement enterprise-wide content enabled applications. Atos Origin is expecting to grow its ECM activities by 10% en 2010.

Atos Origin is a leading international information technology (IT) services company, providing hi-tech transactional services, consulting, systems integration and managed operations to deliver business outcomes globally. The company’s annual revenues are EUR 5.1 billion and it employs 49,000 people. Atos Origin is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic Games and has a client base of international companies across all sectors. Atos Origin is quoted on the Paris Eurolist Market and trades as Atos Origin, Atos Worldline and Atos Consulting.