Reliable Digital Information is More Important Than Ever
We help organizations and enterprises transform from paper-based data blackholes into modern digital information powerhouses.
Digital transformation must consider, plan, and implement change across a spectrum of organizational components: people, business processes, data management, industry regulations, and technology. It takes a special blend of change management, data structuring expertise, records management skills, and digital tools to achieve success across the full organizational information lifecycle. HAI provides the subject matter experts to guide and implement the complete digital transformation lifecycle.
Achieving a fully digital records and information management program will ensure that your organization’s employees, board members, and partners have ready, reliable access to the data they need to connect communities, improve access, and stimulate engagement. Increased digital access to your organization’s information will promote research, innovation, and public service now and for years to come.
Our information experts will guide you through a 5-step digital transformation process:
Digital transformation begins with assessment and evaluation to understand your existing paper and digital records.
Once your records are known, we develop a taxonomy and vocabulary that allows us to meaningfully tag content for improved search, relevance, and findability.
After developing an enterprise-wide taxonomy, we apply these new data principles through records hygiene activities: we review, weed, organize, tag and stabilize your paper records for digitization.
We then digitize your remaining records according to established rules and guidelines for the scanning process and outputs.
Once all paper records are digitized, we support the import of the new digital assets into your existing or new technology platform to provide access to your users.
HAI provides the following Digital Transformation services:
POINT OF CONTACT:
Laura Starr, CA
Director of Business Development and Partnerships
lstarr@historyassociates.com
Direct: 301.279.9697
Technology Selection
We support selection of software and hardware solutions for any digital or tech driven history, museum, research, or archives project.
The Technology Solution Landscape is infinite. As vendor-agnostic consultants, we collaborate with you to understand your organization’s needs and develop requirements to select the best technology for you. Let us help you select from a range of options:
Records Management
- Focused on records lifecycle management (retention, retrieval, and disposition)
- Structured organization
- Focus on documents and images
Digital Preservation
- Focused on long term preservation
- Ingest from multiple sources
- Integrity checking
- Technical metadata extraction
- Migration/emulation
Collections Management
- Focused on physical artifacts
- Manages metadata and images
- Tracks loans and exhibitions
- Physical storage management
- Barcoding
Content Management
- Focused on web distribution
- Edit and publish content
- Collaborative environment
- Unstructured management
- Supports multiple content types
Archival Management
- Focused on archival workflows (appraisal, accessioning, arrangement, finding aids)
- Hierarchical organization
- Manages metadata and images
- Physical storage management
Digital Asset Management (DAM)
- Focused on digital file management
- Structured organization
- Contains metadata and rights data
- Transcoding and distribution
- Focus on images and multimedia
▶ Check out how we enabled the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia to upgrade their Collections Management System (CMS)
Storytelling with Technology
We combine narrative storytelling and historical accuracy with technology solutions to create truly engaging and thrilling experiences for visitors to historic cities, sites, properties, and museums; generating increased revenue and audience engagement.
We conduct historical research, create thoughtful phrasing and design to bring your story to life, and engage your audiences through the use of digital technology. We have collaborated with clients to digitally share their stories through the use of digital exhibits experienced online or in person, mobile apps, digital vignettes, online educational modules, and social media campaigns.
- Check out how we brought history to life on a sprawling battlefield using a mobile app
- Check out how we got high school students excited about history through online educational modules
- Discover how to transform your digital assets to drive online engagement from the CEO of our digital exhibit platform partner, Pass It Down
Digitization Services
Our clients are increasingly choosing to digitize their records to increase access, aid in preservation, create a cache of digital content to use in digital exhibits or brand initiatives, and comply with federal records management and transfer mandates.
Whatever your digitization goal, we combine the professional expertise of our archivists’, records managers’, and project managers’ with our strategic partnerships with digitization and digital preservation vendors to ensure that your records are digitized to industry standard and best practices.
HAI Digitization services include:
- Strategic planning
- Selection assistance
- Metadata creation
- Project management and coordination
- Quality assurance
- Grant assistance
