The UK Archivist's
Migration Guide

From CALM, Adlib, and spreadsheets to modern open-source systems.

No catalogue yet? If your archive has never had an online catalogue — still working from Word documents, spreadsheets, or paper lists — see our Get Your Archive Online guide first. This page covers migration from existing systems.

Why Migrate Now?

Many UK archives are still running on CALM (Axiell), Adlib, or bespoke Access/FileMaker databases — systems that are expensive to licence, difficult to integrate, and increasingly out of step with the IIIF and linked-data landscape. The good news: migration to open-source platforms has become significantly more reliable, and the tools and expertise now exist to do it without losing your data.

The CALM problem: CALM licences are substantial annual costs for institutions that frequently have frozen or reduced budgets. AtoM offers equivalent (often superior) functionality at zero software cost. The investment is in migration and hosting — both one-off or manageable ongoing costs.

Step 1 — Audit Your Current Data

Before any migration, understand what you have:

Export from CALM

CALM can export to XML and CSV formats. Request a full export from Axiell before your licence expires. Ensure you export:

Export from Adlib / Axiell Archive

Adlib uses its own XML structure. Export via the Adlib Designer or request a data extract from Axiell. The XML maps relatively cleanly to ISAD(G) fields, which is the basis for AtoM's data model.

Step 2 — Map Your Fields to ISAD(G)

AtoM is built around the ICA standards — ISAD(G) for archival descriptions, ISAAR(CPF) for authority records. Most CALM fields map directly, but there are nuances:

TNA guidance: The National Archives publishes detailed ISAD(G) guidance for UK practitioners. We recommend aligning your field mapping with TNA's published standards before finalising your migration schema — particularly for access conditions and physical description.

Step 3 — Clean Your Data

This is often the most time-consuming step, but it's also an opportunity. Common issues in UK archival data include:

We recommend OpenRefine for data cleaning — it's free, powerful, and widely used in the UK archival community for exactly this task.

Step 4 — Prepare Your AtoM CSV

AtoM's import format is well-documented. The CSV import handles all description levels and authority records in separate passes. Key points:

Step 5 — Migrate & Verify

We run all migrations through a staging environment first. You can review the imported data before going live — checking that hierarchies are correct, authority links have resolved, and digital objects are accessible. We then run a record count comparison and spot-check against your source system before the final cutover.

Common Migration Sources We Handle

CONTENTdm Migration

CONTENTdm (OCLC) is widely used in UK university libraries and special collections for digital object management. It holds 206 instances in the UK archives research database — the third most common system after CALM and ArchivesSpace.

What the migration involves

CONTENTdm uses Dublin Core metadata, which maps well to AtoM's archival description fields, though some work is required to restructure flat DC records into a hierarchical ISAD(G) model. Digital objects (images, PDFs, audio/video) are extracted via the CONTENTdm API and republished as IIIF manifests, giving you full standards-compliant image delivery without ongoing OCLC fees.

OCLC licence costs: CONTENTdm charges per digital object stored. After migration, ongoing storage costs go to zero — you host the objects on your own infrastructure or ours, without per-object fees.

Preservica Migration

Preservica is a commercial digital preservation platform used by some UK archives for long-term storage of born-digital collections. It stores content in OAIS-compliant Archival Information Packages (AIPs) and is well-regarded for preservation workflows, but its annual licence cost is substantial.

What the migration involves

Preservation content in Preservica can be exported as SIPs and re-ingested into Archivematica, the leading open-source digital preservation platform. Archivematica produces OAIS-compliant AIPs stored in Arkivum, DuraCloud, or local storage — with full PREMIS provenance metadata preserved.

We do not suggest Preservica is technically inferior — it is a capable platform. This path is for institutions whose budget priorities have changed or who want to move to open-source infrastructure.

PastPerfect Migration

PastPerfect is a US-developed museum collections management system used by some UK smaller museums, heritage organisations, and society archives. Its web publishing module (PastPerfect Online) is limited and not standards-compliant.

What the migration involves

PastPerfect data is exported in its proprietary format or via MARC/Dublin Core. We map it to CollectiveAccess (the leading open-source museum collections management system) or, for collections better described as archives, to AtoM under ISAD(G).

Word Documents & PDF Finding Aids

Many UK archives — particularly religious, society, and business archives — have no catalogue system at all. Their finding aids exist as Word documents or PDFs: hierarchically structured text, but not structured data.

What we do

We parse and convert Word and PDF finding aids into ISAD(G)-structured CSV files suitable for import into AtoM. This involves:

This is the most manual process we undertake — it cannot be fully automated — but it is also the most common starting point for UK archives that have never had a catalogue system. The result is a properly structured, searchable public catalogue from what was previously a locked-away document.

If your data problem goes beyond standard migration — bespoke legacy databases, large photographic collections needing batch IIIF processing, or semantic search over transcribed text corpora — see our Advanced Data Services page.

Need help? We offer a free initial consultation for any UK institution considering migration. We will assess your data, estimate the effort involved, and give you an honest view of the risks and timeline before you commit to anything.
Talk to Us About Your Migration