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The National ArchivesOpen Text manages new static content for The National Archives—one of the world’s largest information banks

The National Archives, based at Kew, is the UK government’s official archive containing

almost 1,000 years of history. It houses one of the largest collections in the world with

over ten million records and documents from The Domesday Book to

government papers.

It holds records of the central courts of law, documents useful for family historians (census data, wills, and divorce records), service records of the British armed forces, records of central government departments, and Foreign and Colonial Office correspondence showing Britain’s relations with the rest of the world.

Maintaining this huge and extremely important collection and managing the content so that information is readily available to the general public, the professions, businesses, and government departments is one of the most challenging of all information management tasks.

“It was essential we found a structured, methodical, effective, and efficient way to manage such a mass of information,” says Vera Mehta, The National Archives’ Web Designer/Developer. “After a thorough review of the market, we selected Open Text for our Web Content Management System (CMS). It has proved a perfect match for our requirements.”

Online information explosionThe National Archives acts as the nation’s collective memory by storing the records of government. It is tasked with assembling and making available regular influxes of information from such nationally important activities as UK census surveys and the release of government archives under the 30-year rule.

Ten years ago, in its former guise as the Public Records Office, The National Archives had a single-page presence on the

government Web portal. Today, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk provides access to databases, news and information from press releases, event details, and podcasts to a catalogue of over 10 million official documents. Clearly to manage such an exponential growth of online information, the small in-house Web team required expert support.

Removing the bottleneckIt was equally important to find a way to remove the bottleneck in uploading data, making changes, and keeping Web information up to date. Previously, all content was prepared and managed by a small Web team using basic Internet development tools. The manual preparation of documents, passing to the Web team for conversion to HTML, validating, and amending on a test site was a lengthy and resource-consuming process. It took at least five days to implement a change and much longer to upload a complete suite of new pages.

“We have over 500 employees, and each department has its own presence on The National Archives’ Web site. They were all channelling uploads and Web requests through our Webmaster and the small Web team,” Mehta explains. “Because the Open Text solution is simple and intuitive to use, we have now empowered content owners to construct and upload their own pages. The content owners are happy to have more control, the content is loaded faster, and the Web team is able to progress Web improvements in other areas.”

“Open Text came out on top. Its Web solution is highly featured and easy to set up and use. Open Text has given us excellent support and

willingly transferred knowledge to our Web team. In a complex environment such as The National Archives, we particularly valued the version history feature, which lets us see an audit trail of when and why changes to the site were made, long after individuals may have forgotten.”

2 | Customer Success

computer servers and storage systems that house them, would both increase rapidly were the servers allowed to become cluttered with old and irrelevant material.

Although over 500 potential content owners create, upload, and manage their own Web pages, the overall appearance, structure, and accessibility of the site are maintained to a consistent style and standard. This is achieved automatically by the Open Text system that allows the Web team to formalise the “look and feel” and the structure of the site through a portfolio of tailored templates. These ensure site standards are maintained while the templates guide content owners through the stages of building pages, presenting content, and uploading without the need to possess a detailed knowledge of Web technology.

“The content owners are very happy using the Open Text templates. They have a secure and efficient framework within which to construct their pages and really value the speed with which they can handle uploads and changes and the control they have over their own information areas,” Mehta comments.

Proactive site managementFreeing-up the Webmaster and the Web team is the key benefit of distributing responsibility for the content and using Open Text to automate routine site administration. Instead of being under constant pressure to deal with content changes and formatting new material for the Web, the small Web team is now more productively employed in upgrading, extending, and improving the entire Web site.

Open government tenderSelection of a CMS vendor was subject to the thorough scrutiny required of a government open tender. Great care was taken to achieve best value for money from the public purse. The National Archive sifted about 10 potential suppliers to present a proof-of-concept demonstration of their products and undergo intensive interrogation to evaluate product reliability and performance and assess the capabilities and support levels of each vendor.

According to Mehta, “Open Text came out on top. Its Web solution is highly featured and easy to set up and use. Open Text has given us excellent support and willingly transferred knowledge to our Web team. In a complex environment such as The National Archives, we particularly valued the version history feature, which lets us see an audit trail of when and why changes to the site were made, long after individuals may have forgotten.”

Consistent and accurateThe Open Text solution provides important features to help The National Archives automate Web file management. If a page is not updated or accessed for a while, the software triggers an automatic alert so that the content owner can take the appropriate action to ensure information on the Web site is kept accurate and relevant.

The National Archives had a big problem with its Web server becoming overcrowded with obsolete information. It now uses Open Text to purge out-of-date or rarely used material automatically—an operational and economic imperative for such a large online information service. Difficulties in accessing documents and the cost of

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“The implementation of the Open Text system has given our Web team the time to work with content owners to improve the appearance and structure of the material they disseminate via the Internet,” Mehta comments, alluding to the need to provide more concise, tree-structured content for easy access via the Web.

Working closely with The National Archives, Open Text consultants undertook a comprehensive business review of the requirements and attitudes towards publishing material online. Extensive interviews were conducted with department heads, content owners, and other staff to find

out what was working and what could be improved. The review confirmed high satisfaction levels with the new CMS and the improvements to The National Archives’ Web presence.

“Because of Open Text, we are now actively pursuing more advanced ways of adding video, maps, and historical databases to the site without adding pressure to the team. Such activities were previously outside our capabilities due to a lack of available time,” Mehta comments.