Remembering History, Moving Forward Together

The Diocese of Arlington is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in Northern Virginia in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese
in the ecclesiastical province of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The Cathedral of St. Thomas More is its mother church.

The Diocese was established 50 years ago, but their archives contains parish records from the mid-1800s. Currently, 75% of the materials are documents, and 25% consists of photographs, art works, and audiovisual materials. The archives is a small-to-medium sized repository, with one full time archivist and one part-time person working on their collection.

With the cataloging backlog under control, moving forward the collection will be 90% digital—both born-digital and digitized, with digitization focused on photographs, books, and journals.

Ms. Alukonis was introduced to ArchivEra via the Society of American Archivists, and the Information Technology department at the diocese gave an early thumbs up to the software during vendor due diligence. In their view, ArchivEra compared very favorably to competitors because of its cutting edge technology, modern user interface, and software-as-a service option. Ms. Alukonis said, “During the product demonstration, it was obvious that the Lucidea team came well prepared, with great sector knowledge. They gave examples that really connected with the type of archives we have … we didn’t see that with anyone else.”

It’s clear that ArchivEra has turned out to be the right choice from a workflow perspective. Says Ms. Alukonis, “It’s unbelievable how much time it has saved me. It’s easy to use from start to finish in the archival process, from accessioning to putting materials into collections. And the ability to search and find what you need within a few seconds is a huge timesaver.” ArchivEra will ultimately be a money saver as well—the Diocese pays for other services related to online exhibitions and timelines that can ultimately be implemented within ArchivEra.

In time, there will be an ArchivEra public portal to the archival collections, once the 3,000 records/items from the Excel spreadsheet have been cleaned up and cataloged. As part of finding the balance between being closed and still offering some transparency and access, Ms. Alukonis told us “The most important thing we do when we catalog is to input permissions correctly … is it confidential, restricted, or public? The security of our materials is the number one concern. With easy to use yet powerful security and permissions management, ArchivEra gives us the confidence we need.”

The Diocese will soon be celebrating its 50th anniversary, based on three pillars—one of which is “History and Remembering”. It was a strategic goal to get the ArchivEra CMS set up and established in order to connect people to the first 50 years and they are well on their way.

ArchivEra meets the archives’ needs surrounding organization and access to past archival content, and anticipates the possibilities for managing future content. Says Ms. Alukonis, “As we move forward, we know it can move forward with us.”