Research Document No. 01 From the Chain of Archival Digital Custody to an Architectonic Reading of Archival Science What Have We Learned After More Than Thirty Years of Research on Digital Records?

 

PDS & Ged/A | Research Notes

Research Document No. 01

From the Chain of Archival Digital Custody to an Architectonic Reading of Archival Science

What Have We Learned After More Than Thirty Years of Research on Digital Records?

10 January 2026

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Welcome to the PDS & Ged/A Research Notes

Science usually reaches society only after it is finished.

We read journal articles, books, technical reports and doctoral dissertations once the research has already been completed. We rarely have the opportunity to see how ideas emerge, how research questions evolve, which hypotheses are abandoned and which eventually become mature enough to support new scientific contributions.

We have always believed that there is another way of sharing research.

This is precisely why we created the PDS & Ged/A Research Notes.

Rather than publishing only final results, we would like to open our research laboratory and share the intellectual journey behind our investigations.

Not to announce definitive answers.

But to invite colleagues to think with us.

Because we believe that scientific knowledge grows through dialogue.

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Looking back before moving forward

Between the second half of 2025 and the first half of 2026 our research group organized an extensive Permanent Research Seminar.

Initially, our objective was quite modest.

We simply intended to revisit several topics that have accompanied our research over the last three decades:

• electronic records;

• digital archival records;

• digital preservation;

• the Chain of Archival Digital Custody (CADC), originally proposed in Portuguese as Cadeia de Custódia Digital Arquivística (CCDA);

• Systemic Digital Preservation;

• archival requirements;

• the OAIS Reference Model;

• Digital Archival Ecosystems.

At first, we thought this would be little more than a literature review.

It turned out to be something very different.

As we revisited our own publications, reread papers written in the 1990s, reviewed research projects and discussed the authors who have influenced our work over the years, an unexpected question gradually emerged.

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Have we actually been studying the same problem all along?

At first glance, the answer would seem to be no.

Over the years we have investigated electronic records, digital records, authenticity, metadata, digital preservation, trusted digital repositories, Archivematica, AtoM, artificial intelligence and many other topics.

These certainly appear to be independent research areas.

However, as we looked back at our own trajectory, something became increasingly evident.

Technologies changed continuously.

The archival questions did not.

We kept asking essentially the same questions.

How can authenticity be maintained?

How can archival context be preserved?

How can institutional accountability remain demonstrable over time?

How can digital records continue to function as trustworthy evidence?

Gradually we realised something that we had never explicitly formulated before.

Perhaps we had never been studying technologies as such.

Perhaps we had been studying enduring archival problems expressed through different technological environments.

This apparently simple observation profoundly changed the way we now understand Digital Archival Science.

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Has digital transformation changed Archival Science?

This became one of the central discussions throughout the seminar.

For many years we have argued that digital transformation fundamentally changed archival practice.

We still believe that this statement is correct.

However, we now think it requires an important qualification.

Digital transformation may not have altered the foundations of Archival Science.

Instead, it may have made those foundations considerably more visible.

Before digital environments became dominant, many archival relationships remained largely implicit.

Authenticity was embedded within institutional routines.

Custody was naturally exercised through administrative procedures.

Context was largely preserved by organizational stability.

Digital environments changed that situation dramatically.

Relationships that had previously been taken for granted suddenly required explicit documentation.

Metadata became essential.

Archival requirements became increasingly sophisticated.

Audit trails, preservation planning and trusted digital repositories acquired unprecedented importance.

Not because archival principles had changed.

But because they now needed to be continuously demonstrated.

Perhaps this has been one of the most important lessons of our recent discussions.

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The Chain of Archival Digital Custody has also evolved

Revisiting our previous research also changed our own understanding of the Chain of Archival Digital Custody.

Originally, the concept was proposed as a way of ensuring documentary continuity within digital environments.

Today we believe that its significance extends much further.

The Chain of Archival Digital Custody is not simply about documenting the movement of records between systems.

It is fundamentally about preserving institutional continuity.

It documents responsibilities.

It supports trust.

It makes institutional actions demonstrable over time.

Rather than merely following records, it preserves the relationships that allow those records to continue functioning as reliable evidence.

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Systemic Digital Preservation has matured as well

A similar evolution occurred with Systemic Digital Preservation.

For many years we primarily described it as a digital preservation strategy.

Today we increasingly understand it as an organizational architecture.

No software preserves records by itself.

No repository guarantees authenticity simply because it exists.

Preservation depends on governance.

On institutional policies.

On professional responsibilities.

On archival requirements.

On people.

On infrastructure.

On the permanent interaction among all these elements.

Perhaps this is why we now see Systemic Digital Preservation as a way of organizing institutions rather than merely preserving digital objects.

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Perhaps we are entering a new stage

By the end of the seminar another research hypothesis gradually began to emerge.

Perhaps the Chain of Archival Digital Custody, Systemic Digital Preservation, Digital Archival Ecosystems, archival requirements and even our recent work on artificial intelligence are not independent research topics.

Perhaps they all represent different responses to the same enduring archival questions.

We do not yet know all the implications of this hypothesis.

And perhaps it is still too early to answer them.

But we believe they are worth sharing.

This is exactly why these Research Notes have been created.

We would like to make the research process itself more visible.

To receive criticism.

To encourage discussion.

To learn from colleagues around the world.

Science advances not only through answers.

It also advances through better questions.

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Let's continue the conversation

We would very much like to hear your thoughts.

Has digital transformation fundamentally changed Archival Science, or has it simply made its enduring questions more visible?

If this text resonates with your own research experience, we invite you to join the conversation.

Research is always richer when it is shared.

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Next Research Document

25 January 2026

Systemic Digital Preservation

Foundations, evolution and future perspectives for preservation within Digital Archival Ecosystems.

The conversation has just begun.

We hope you will continue this journey with us.