Research Document No. 05 Rethinking the Chain of Archival Digital Custody How a concept originally developed for digital records gradually became a framework for understanding institutional continuity
PDS & Ged/A | Research Notes
Research Document No. 05
Rethinking the Chain of Archival Digital Custody
How a concept originally developed for digital records gradually became a framework for understanding institutional continuity
10 March 2026
🌎 Open Science
The PDS & Ged/A Research Notes are part of an ongoing Open Science initiative dedicated to sharing research questions, emerging ideas, preliminary findings and research agendas in Digital Archival Science. Rather than presenting only completed research, we seek to document the evolution of our research programme itself, inviting archivists, records professionals, researchers, students and institutions to join this conversation.
Today we would like to revisit an idea that has accompanied our research for many years
Some concepts are developed to answer a very specific question.
Others gradually evolve far beyond their original purpose.
We believe the Chain of Archival Digital Custody (CADC) belongs to this second category.
When we first began developing this concept, our objective seemed quite straightforward.
How can digital archival records remain authentic over time?
At that moment, that question appeared sufficient.
Today we believe another question had been quietly hidden inside it all along.
Perhaps we were never trying only to preserve records.
Perhaps we were trying to understand how institutions preserve the continuity of their responsibilities in digital environments.
We certainly did not recognise that possibility at the beginning.
It emerged only after many years of research and countless conversations.
That is precisely why we felt it was time to revisit this concept.
Not because we intend to redefine it.
But because we have come to understand it differently.
📓 Laboratory Notes
February 2026
During one of our seminar sessions, someone made an observation that immediately changed the direction of our discussion.
"We have always explained the Chain of Archival Digital Custody by looking at records. Perhaps we should start explaining it by looking at institutions."
The sentence seemed almost self-evident.
Yet none of us had considered it before.
Sometimes conceptual change begins with nothing more than a different point of observation.
Every chain of custody begins before the first record exists
For many years we implicitly assumed that the Chain of Archival Digital Custody began when a record was created.
Today we increasingly believe that it begins much earlier.
It begins when an institution defines responsibilities.
When governance structures are established.
When business functions are assigned.
When organizational processes are designed.
When institutional accountability is articulated.
Records emerge within that institutional architecture.
They do not exist independently from it.
Looking back, this may represent one of the most significant shifts in our understanding of the Chain of Archival Digital Custody.
💡 One of our research findings
As we revisited our previous publications, we realised that we had often described the Chain of Archival Digital Custody primarily as a mechanism for protecting authenticity.
We still consider that interpretation valid.
However, it now seems incomplete.
The Chain of Archival Digital Custody also documents the continuity of institutional responsibilities.
Perhaps this broader perspective represents one of its most important contributions to contemporary Archival Science.
Custody has never meant storage alone
Custody is often understood primarily as the physical or digital control of records.
Our experience suggests something considerably broader.
Custody also means responsibility.
Continuity.
Trust.
Institutional commitment.
The ability to demonstrate that records have remained under accountable stewardship throughout their existence.
Storage certainly matters.
But custody has always represented much more than storage.
Digital environments simply made that broader meaning more visible.
🔬 An unexpected outcome of our seminar
While analysing several digital preservation projects, we noticed a recurring pattern.
The most significant difficulties rarely originated in software.
Instead, they almost always emerged within institutions.
Changes in governance.
Changes in organizational responsibilities.
The absence of long-term policies.
Administrative discontinuity.
Professional turnover.
Gradually we realised that the Chain of Archival Digital Custody was helping us explain far more than documentary workflows.
It was helping us explain institutional stability.
The Chain of Archival Digital Custody gradually connected our entire research programme
Perhaps this was one of the most rewarding moments of our seminar.
The more we revisited our previous work, the more connections became visible.
Systemic Digital Preservation depends upon the continuity documented by custody.
Digital Archival Ecosystems broaden the institutional environment within which custody operates.
OAIS provides preservation functions, but archival custody provides documentary continuity.
Records management gives operational expression to custody.
Governance sustains it.
Archival requirements make it demonstrable.
Instead of existing as isolated concepts, they increasingly appeared to form a coherent research programme.
We certainly did not anticipate that outcome.
But today it seems remarkably consistent.
🤔 An ongoing discussion
One discussion remains unresolved.
Should custody always be understood as documentary custody?
Or should we also speak about chains of institutional responsibility?
We do not yet have a definitive answer.
At the moment, however, we increasingly suspect that these two dimensions cannot truly be separated.
The discussion continues.
Perhaps we have been talking about continuity all along
There is one word that repeatedly appeared throughout our seminar.
Continuity.
Documentary continuity.
Institutional continuity.
Continuity of accountability.
Continuity of trust.
The longer we study digital records, the more we realise that preservation ultimately concerns continuity.
Not merely preserving digital objects.
Not merely preserving systems.
But preserving relationships that remain understandable, accountable and trustworthy over time.
Perhaps continuity has always been the central concern of the Chain of Archival Digital Custody.
We are only now beginning to recognise it more clearly.
🌱 A hypothesis under construction
When we first proposed the Chain of Archival Digital Custody, we believed we were addressing one of the central challenges of digital records.
Today we are beginning to wonder whether the concept may also help explain something much broader.
Institutional continuity itself.
We still have much work ahead before reaching firm conclusions.
But this hypothesis has become too important to remain confined to our seminar discussions.
That is precisely why we wanted to share it here.
We continue learning
One of the most valuable lessons of this research programme has been discovering that concepts also have histories.
They emerge.
They evolve.
They are reinterpreted.
They connect with other ideas.
Sometimes they reveal meanings that even their original authors had not fully recognised.
Perhaps the Chain of Archival Digital Custody is currently experiencing exactly that stage of intellectual maturation.
And we consider it a privilege to document that evolution while it is still unfolding.
💬 Let's continue the conversation
How is the Chain of Archival Digital Custody understood within your own professional context?
Is it primarily viewed as a mechanism for ensuring authenticity?
Or do you also see it as a framework for understanding institutional continuity?
We would genuinely value your perspective.
Perhaps your experience will help shape the next stage of this research programme.
📅 Next Research Note
Digital Archival Governance
Is documentary governance simply another expression for records management, or does it represent a broader organizational layer within Digital Archival Ecosystems?
25 March 2026
The research continues.
And we hope you will continue exploring these questions with us.
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