ParER - Emilia-Romagna Digital Archive Centre

ParER – Polo archivistico dell'Emilia-Romagna is the digital archive centre of Emilia-Romagna region, responsible for the permanent preservation of digital records transferred from all regional public administrations.

It was established in 2009, as part of IBC - Istituto beni culturali della Regione Emilia-Romagna, the regional agency for cultural heritage.
It is considered one of the Italian best practices in preservation of digital archives, and its mission is to develop policies and procedures for record-making, record-keeping and record-preservation, in order to ensure that all data transferred from the public administrations can be safely stored, in order to be accessible in the forthcoming years.
ParER preserves different digital record typologies: administrative, educational, cultural, health care, etc. Up to now, it is preserving over 20 million of records, coming from over 100 public administrations.

ParER has its own technological infrastructure, with two physical data-centres (the main one in Bologna and the backup in Milan). Its services are guaranteed by a totally own preservation software called “Sacer”, the design, improvement and development of which are under the total control of ParER staff, which amounts of over 20 persons and 15 external professional support.

ParER is also involved in definition of national models and rules on recordkeeping and digital preservation, and participated in various international projects. Among them, the InterPares Project (International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems), that aimed at developing the knowledge essential to the long-term preservation of authentic digital records. Currently, ParER is also member of the archival advisory board of e-ark project (www.eark-project.com).