Storage firm EMC digitizes CCP archives

MANILA, Philippines - Storage firm EMC recently unveiled a massive digitization project that would convert the entire audio-visual collection of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) into digital format to preserve the nation’s cultural treasures and make them accessible to the world online.

The CCP’s vast collection of national, historical and cultural materials currently consists of approximately 40,000 hours of audio, 30,000 hours of tapes from its film archive, 6,500 photos, 28,000 photographic slides, and at least 56,000 manuscripts of literary works.

Working with the CCP to preserve these cultural gems for future generations, EMC embarked on the digitization project as part of its corporate social responsibility project to celebrate its 10th year in the Philippines.

“Today, the world’s priceless, irreplaceable information remains un-digitized. The collections of national museums, the archives of the world’s great institutions, poetry, ancient writings and music comprise the world’s information heritage. Yet many of these historical documents are unrecorded and not captured and preserved,” said David Webster, EMC Corp. president for Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, during the public unveiling of the project.

What would enable a country to look back at its historical documents and cultural artefacts and gives it a sense of purpose is to give that country a sense of future, he added.

“CCP is honored to be a beneficiary of this digital preservation initiative. It shows EMC’s spirit and vision of making technology a vital tool in building a better Philippines and outstanding Filipinos. This partnership will benefit not only this generation but the youth of the future as well,” said Dr. Raul Sunico, president of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

EMC is a developer and provider of infrastructure technology and solutions that enable business organizations to transform and create value from their information.

With 18TB of storage space, the EMC Celerra NS-120 would support the disk capacity requirements of CCP’s digitization program.

CCP’s digitization project is a three-year undertaking that may be one of its most important technology investments for the Philippines.

To start the process of digitization of CCP’s cultural gems, EMC provided an 18-terrabyte storage system — the Celerra NS-120 — as well as content management software — the Application Xtender — to manage the digital repository and serve as its front-end application for indexing and search.

Boy Martin, technical product manager of EMC Philippines, said a central portal for searching and browsing CCP’s digital assets via a Web browser was also developed.

“To enable CCP to manage this infrastructure, we are also providing knowledge transfer and hands-on training to the CCP staff for the proper use and maintenance of the storage system,” he said.

Training, maintenance and support consist of hands-on training on the proper use and maintenance of the storage system for the CCP staff assigned to the digitization project.

From a repository of hard copies, the CCP library would soon become a virtual, interactive library.

Ronnie Latinazo, country manager of EMC Philippines, said EMC’s collaboration with CCP is a natural fit with its core business and expertise on storing, protecting and managing critical digital information assets.

“It has been a rewarding challenge to help CCP create a virtual and interactive environment to make information on Philippines’ rich cultural past available and accessible to everyone,” he said.

Eva Mari Salvador, head of CCP’s CSRS division, explained that the CCP would be able to digitize at least 600 hours of videos for every year that the CCP has been in existence and the estimate for completely digitizing its vast library is about 10 years.

Aside from audio-visual materials, there are also slides, prints, posters, and photographs which would be made available in the next three years.

The CCP was established in 1969 by the Marcos administration to preserve Filipino arts and culture as well as promote the development and appreciation of national arts and culture.

Sunico said that while the digitization effort is ongoing, the CCP will also prepare policies that will govern the fair use of the digitized materials once they become available and accessible online.

However, it would definitely be free or very affordable to students and researchers for academic or non-profit undertakings. For corporate and commercial use, the CCP would ensure that the rights of individual artists and groups would be respected and protected.