The Vatican Apostolic Library has selected IT solutions provider NTT Data for digitally archiving its manuscripts.
The deal worth $22.6 million will cover about 3,000 documents over a four-year period.
Toshio Iwamoto, president and CEO of NTT Data, said: “Through this project, NTT Data looks forward to contributing to art, academia and business by deploying its IT expertise on a global level.”
Earlier, NTT Data assisted in digital archiving of Japan’s National Diet Library. The company offers digital archive service AMLAD.
The overall project, which was started by the Vatican Apostolic Library some years ago and is currently ongoing with an initial output of 6,000 manuscripts, is intended to digitally archive all manuscripts preserved in the Library, amounting to some 82,000 specimens and 41 million pages.
NTT Data agreed to participate after spending several months extensively reviewing the overall project, including the basic parameters as well as technical and structural aspects. The company has verified that it can assimilate and optimize the systems of the Vatican Apostolic Library, and apply the methodology as a model for other projects involving the long-term preservation of digitally reproduced images.
NTT Data will enhance current processes and developed materials by contributing a range of key services, including archiving digital manuscripts as high-definition data, supported with special measures for long-term storage and safekeeping. This will include use of a highly sustainable storage format, metadata management to increase search efficiency, optimized search algorithms and a user-friendly search interface.
