Learning from Rebbe Archive Team

When the Association of Moving Image Archivists’ reached out to a member of their group requesting that they present their preservation project and content management system to a conference of their archivist peers, it was a fairly standard request.

Until you consider that fact that the small non-profit organization, and their case study is The Living Archive, the collection video, audio and photography of the Rebbe and the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, and in particular, the Media Access Management system built by JEM to catalog and access the moving image materials.

The Digital Asset Symposium featured Rabbi Elkanah Shmotkin, the archive’s chief visionary; Dekel Hamatian, who directed development of the system, and Shlomo Morosow, the senior archivist and metadata specialist. The three spoke about their search for an appropriate system to suit their needs, and their decision to build a new system from the ground up, covering technical, content, hardware, programming, and other areas.

According to Tom Regal, Chairman of the Conference and a Director of the Board of AMIA, “We want the entire community of technical and creative users to share what they are working on, the lessons learned and challenges faced. The Living Archive project is the perfect example of the type of solutions we like to showcase. This shows what can be done when you don’t settle but continue to pursue a complete solution. I am very impressed by the Living Archive and the presentation was very engaging.”