The digital transformation era has profoundly reshaped archives and records management, redefining the roles of professionals in this field. Modern archivists and records managers must preserve historical documents while also taking on essential roles such as digital curation, metadata administration, cybersecurity, and data analysis.
Adapting to technological advances while ensuring professionals continuously update their skills to meet new demands is a major challenge for universities and institutions. Documentation and records management protocols require revision to improve digital workflows as roles and competencies evolve.
Beyond these challenges, the digital era offers great opportunities for innovation and education, especially in Middle Eastern universities. At the American University in Cairo, we have begun exploring automated tagging of texts and images using artificial intelligence, which enhances metadata accuracy and facilitates the identification of essential elements. This optimizes information retrieval and simplifies the identification of digital records. The use of photogrammetry is rapidly growing, enabling the creation of detailed digital replicas of artifacts and historical sites, facilitating user navigation in virtual environments and the study of historical objects and documents from new perspectives.
We are implementing crowdsourcing to improve metadata; in addition to using Google Drive, we are exploring the Zooniverse platform to enable volunteer collaboration in transcribing historical documents. We also aim to use artificial intelligence to support automatic file conversion to new formats, ensuring ongoing accessibility and long-term preservation. We believe self-healing storage systems will be essential for detecting and correcting data corruption, potentially transforming how we protect digital records.
Progress requires investment; however, the key element is achieving an optimal balance between innovation and sustainability. Understanding its importance allows us to support archivists and records managers in modern governance and historical preservation, ensuring security, accessibility, and relevance for future generations.