When support for Olive Software was discontinued in 2024, Nantucket Atheneum and Gettysburg College faced different versions of the same problem: how to protect access to important digital newspaper collections while moving complex data to a sustainable new platform.
Gettysburg College needed to complete its migration within a few months without interrupting public access. Nantucket Atheneum faced a more complicated recovery after its former archive had already been unavailable for several months.
Working with each institution, the Veridian team recovered or converted the available data, reviewed collection metadata, configured new public interfaces, and migrated the collections to the Veridian digital collections platform.
Two collections with different migration requirements
Nantucket Atheneum provides access to The Inquirer and Inquirer & Mirror,which document the history of Nantucket dating back to 1821. The digital collection contains more than 10,700 issues and approximately half a million articles. By the time the migration began, the former platform had been offline for several months. The project therefore involved more than transferring an active collection between systems. The Veridian team needed to reconstruct the archive from the available data files and restore public access.
Gettysburg College had a different requirement. Its collection contains The Gettysburgian, , a student newspaper published continuously since 1897, with almost 3,000 issues and approximately 150,000 articles. The college needed to migrate the collection before support for the existing platform ended while maintaining access for students, faculty, alumni, researchers, and the wider community.
How the Veridian team approached the migrations
Although both collections originated in Olive Software, their condition, timelines, and institutional requirements differed. The Veridian team assessed the source data and worked with each institution to develop an appropriate migration plan.
The work included four principal areas.
Converting the collection data
The source collections used Olive’s prXML format. The Veridian team converted the available data into METS/ALTO, widely used metadata standards adopted by institutions such as the Library of Congress. These standards support long-term preservation, interoperability, improved searchability, and future reuse.
Ingesting content and reviewing metadata
The team ingested 10,704 issues of The Inquirer and Inquirer and Mirror and 2,966 issues of The Gettysburgian into the Veridian paltform.
During the migration, collection metadata was reviewed and refined to support accurate searching, browsing, and navigation. This work was particularly important where data had been recovered from an inactive system or transformed from a platform-specific format.
Creating collection-specific interfaces
Each public interface was configured to reflect the institution’s visual identity, collection, and audience.
For Gettysburg College, that audience includes students, faculty, alumni, and researchers exploring the history of the college and its community. Nantucket Atheneum serves local residents, historians, genealogists, and others researching the island’s history.
The Veridian platform provides the search, browsing, viewing, and access environment, while the Veridian team worked with each institution on the implementation and interface configuration.
Testing the migrated collections
Before launch, the team conducted quality-assurance checks covering content, metadata, search behavior, navigation, interface functionality, and accessibility.
For Nantucket Atheneum, testing was especially important because the archive had been unavailable for several months. Restoring access required confidence that the reconstructed collection was complete, usable, and ready for public use.
Restoring access and supporting continuity
Gettysburg College’s new archive launched in June 2024. Nantucket Atheneum’s reconstructed archive followed in December 2024.
The two projects demonstrate that digital collection migrations cannot always follow a single standard process. One institution may need a carefully scheduled transition from a functioning system, while another may need to recover a collection from incomplete or dormant data.
In both cases, successful migration depended on understanding the source material, converting the data appropriately, reviewing metadata, testing the resulting collection, and planning around the institution’s audience and operational needs.
Veridian continues to host and maintain both collections, providing the technical infrastructure, software updates, and support required for ongoing public access
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