Monolith: Lessons Learned on the Way to the Market

Abstract

In 2006 the Imaging and Media Lab at the University of Basel started a first project called Peviar (Permanent Visual Archive) [1, 2]. The aim was to find a digital archival storage solution without the need of periodic migration. The basic approach was to store binary data as 2D barcode on micrographic film. The theoretical, promising results found in Peviar have been further developed. Two subsequent applied science projects concluded in a commercial product called Monolith, which was introduced on the market in 2008.Monolith is a workflow for migration-less preservation of digital data on optical media. It combines the permanence and visual nature of photographic material and the strength of digital imaging technology. The binary information is stored as bit pattern in 2D barcode either on one or multiple film layers. The machine readable code is enriched by human readable metadata in order to describe the archived objects. It also provides detailed descriptions of how to recover the original files. Because of the image based approach, the recovery is not affected by change of technology; digital cameras certainly will be available in the future. Moreover, they will become better and cheaper.