Lias offers a professional environment for describing, managing and disclosing records. It is a modular system that allows to fully customise archival management. Moreover, you can rely on support from archivists and IT specialists from the Lias network.
Lias offers archivists and other heritage custodians a coherent set of solutions for describing, managing and valorising digital and analogue heritage, and for long-term preservation of digital heritage objects.
Lias is a modular system. All Lias components have been matched, but depending on your situation, you may only need one or some components to meet your needs.
scopeArchiv: for describing, managing and accessing analog and digital archive records.
ODIS: via a plug-in in scopeArchiv, authority data from ODIS can be linked to an archival description.
Omeka: for creating image databases and virtual exhibitions.
Limo: a search platform with personalized results and useful filters.
Teneo: digital and sustainable preservation of digitized or digital materials and archives.
scopeArchiv is a complete archive management system created by and for archivists. It offers an integrated and very complete set of modules for the description, management and dissemination of physical and digital archives. It complies with international archival standards, for example, ISAD(G) is used as the common standard for archival descriptions.
Descriptions created in scopeArchiv can be published via scopeArchiv and/or Limo, under the control of the archivist. The scopeArchiv system is also closely integrated with Teneo, our digital repository and preservation system.
An archival description (Unit of Description, UD) in scopeArchiv is always placed within a tree structure, where each level in the tree contains a specific type of archival descriptions, e.g. archive, dossier, single piece. Archival descriptions can be accessed via this tree structure (browse) or can be searched for. This functionality is at the core of both scopeArchiv and scopeQuery (the public interface).
Teneo is our digital repository and preservation system. It is based on Rosetta and is used for various applications, including archives. Teneo provides a secure environment for ingesting, storing and delivering digital documents, which can be documents from digital archives, digitized documents from physical archives, etc. Teneo also provides the necessary tools to manage uploads and ingests of the digital materials (e.g., scopeGO!, Teneo Uploader, Teneo Ingester). When Teneo is used in combination with scopeArchiv, metadata can be automatically downloaded from scopeArchiv, and resolver links can be automatically added in scopeArchiv upon ingest. The complete workflow from upload to ingest, publishing and delivery (which may depend on the type of the materials being ingested) is described in an ingest agreement.
The basic object in Teneo is the Intellectual Entity (IE). It represents a single digital object (whatever that may be, e.g., a single piece from an archive) and consists of one or more representations. One of the representations is the archive master. Some representations are mainly used for preservation (including the archive master), while others are derivative representations which are mainly used for easy and efficient access.
scopeGO! Is a web interface allowing non-archivists to enter basic archival descriptions (UD’s) in scopeArchiv, together with digital files related to that UD. We support integrated workflows in which the digital files in scopeGO! Are automatically ingested in Teneo, after which resolver links to the newly created IE’s in Teneo are automatically added to the corresponding UD’s in scopeArchiv.
scopeQuery is the public end-user interface for scopeArchiv. It will only show the Units of Description which are marked by the archivist as being ready for publication. In scopeQuery, archives can be browsed based on the tree structure, or they can be queried. No matter how a UD was found (e.g., via a link in Limo or Teneo), it can always be shown within the tree structure.
The LIBIS Resolver is our generic link resolver, providing web access to materials via persistent identifiers. For example, every IE in Teneo can be viewed via a persistent resolver URI, which includes the IE’s persistent identifier. The resolver provides other services besides viewing, such as downloading IIIF manifest files, streams, thumbnails etc., all based on the same persistent identifiers.
ODIS is a web database created and operated by KADOC (the Interfaculty Documentation and Research Centre on Religion, Culture and Society of KU Leuven) and run by a consortium of partners from the archival sector. Through this infrastructure, KADOC and other partners in ODIS centralize, preserve, and disclose authoritative and research-embedded datasets related to the cultural and societal legacies of religion in modern society. The infrastructure allows researchers to access different contextual (meta)datasets that the Centre and other ODIS partners have gathered over the last decades. In January 2021, ODIS contained 262.554 records of which approx. 60% offer validated biographical information, 17% document the history of organizations and networks, and many others provide background information on (periodical) publications, archival units, buildings, congresses....
The first version of the infrastructure was built in the early 2000’s and modernized in 2009-2014. In April 2022, KADOC received funding to build a completely new version of the ODIS database with LIBIS as its technical partner. During a four-year period, KADOC and LIBIS will design and implement a new ODIS infrastructure that supports data discovery and knowledge integration in a manner compliant with the latest innovations and best practices in the field. ODIS is already one of the most intensely used historical research instruments in Flanders for scholars and citizen scientists alike. LIBIS’ role as technical partner in this project is an opportunity for us to gain more experience in technical solutions for the archival sector.