arktiva

Arktiva is a digital archiving platform and community initiative focused on long-term preservation and access to digital cultural artifacts. It provides a scalable, standards-based solution for libraries, museums, universities, and other cultural institutions.

The project originated in a collaboration among librarians, archivists, and technologists in the early 2010s to address the need for reliable digital preservation. The first public release appeared in 2012, and subsequent major updates broadened preservation workflows and metadata support.

Arktiva employs a modular architecture with core preservation services, including metadata management, fixity checks, format identification, and migration planning. It supports standards such as METS, Dublin Core, PREMIS, and OAI-PMH, and offers web interfaces and APIs for ingestion, administration, and access.

Governance is provided by a non-profit foundation and an international contributor community. Development is open source, with ongoing funding from foundations and grants to advance interoperability, community engagement, and long-term sustainability.

Arktiva is used by libraries, archives, museums, universities, and cultural heritage projects to preserve born-digital records, digitized collections, websites, and audiovisual material. The platform emphasizes provenance, reproducibility, and long-term access through documented workflows and audit trails.