By Tom Wilson, Charlie Barbe and Patricia Sleeman[1]
When we think of archives, we often picture paper records, but nearly all our records are digital. How to manage them? UNHCR has had a digital preservation program since 2016 but Records and Archives have been protecting and managing critical digital information since 1996 through its records management program.
The challenges regarding digital archives are complex and many but principal among them is the critical inter dependence between technologies to read digital information over time, combined with the rapid changes in technology plus the speedy manner in which vendors can change – who often safeguard our data. Never has so much of our information been in the hands of so few. Thus, as the world faces its largest refugee crisis, UNHCR’s mission to protect refugees, the internally displaced, and the stateless extends to safeguarding its digital archives. It also faces a digital preservation challenge in the race against time to select, capture, preserve and give access to vital records of emergencies, preserving the history of now for future generations. Despite supporting over 17,000 staff globally, UNHCR’s Records and Archives Section (RAS) is small yet ambitious. Preserving digital content is challenging due to the fast-paced environments in which UNHCR operates. RAS follows a holistic approach, adhering to five key principles:
- Good records management by everyone leads to a strong digital archive.
- Preservation must also consider use and access over time.
- Digital archives include all content regardless of format from web sites to social media to emails.
- Capture and preservation start at point of creation.
- Field operations, the heart of UNHCR’s work, must engage through Record and Archives Section.
This approach enables UNHCR’s digital legacy to endure. The following is a case study of how among the above threats, the global decommissioning of a piece of software affected a piece of UNHCR history.
Against All Odds
UNHCR’s Records and Archives Section (RAS) recently faced the challenge of preserving the educational game Against All Odds, originally built using Flash player, which was discontinued by Adobe in 2020. The game, launched in 2005, was a crucial tool for raising awareness about the global refugee experience and educating young people about the challenges refugees face. Funded with 1 million NOK from Statoil, the project was supported by Microsoft, Ericsson, and Datareal AB.
The game was web-based, aimed at 12-15-year-olds, and offered an immersive experience where players made decisions as refugees navigating situations like interrogation, fleeing their home, and seeking asylum. It became a valuable teaching resource, complete with a facts repository and teacher’s guide for classroom use. Translated into 11 languages, its impact was global, with the German edition, LastExitFlucht, winning the Austrian State Prize for Multimedia and e-Business in 2006.
With Flash’s discontinuation, RAS had to act quickly to preserve this important educational tool. Flash had been a dominant platform for interactive web content in the 2000s, but Adobe announced its end in 2017, posing a challenge for web-based projects like Against All Odds. The preservation efforts and the investment highlight UNHCR’s commitment to safeguarding its digital heritage for future generations.
Today, Against All Odds continues to engage players around the world, educating them about the refugee experience through interactive storytelling. There have been numerous requests from individuals and institutions, including researchers and teachers in various fields such as Global Migration and Social Science, from all over the world—from Australia to Canada. Many of them had used the game for years as part of their curriculum, and after the disappearance of Flash Player, they contacted the archive section to regain access to the game. Individual players around the world have also been playing this game, as demonstrated in this video and this video.
Why preserve this content and how to begin?
As Against All Odds was deemed a key part of UNHCR’s digital heritage, the Division of Information Systems and Telecommunications (DIST) asked the Records and Archives Section (RAS) to capture it in the web archive before it went offline. Using Webrecorder (now Conifer), RAS made partial captures of the English and French versions, but the limitations of Flash technology and available time restricted a full capture. Although only specific game paths were preserved, the web-recorder data was securely stored, and further efforts were made to document the game’s history and context for future preservation.
What next?
The game was originally commissioned by UNHCR’s Regional Representation in Stockholm (today referred to as Multi-country Office Sweden) before being translated from Swedish to other languages. Patricia Sleeman, Head of the Digital Preservation Team, contacted staff in Stockholm who had worked on the game’s original commissioning. They agreed to search their files for content related to the game. Tom Wilson, Web Archivist, then took over, retrieving valuable files and documentation that provided crucial insights into the game’s creation, costs, and context. During this process, Charlie Barbe, Senior Archivist Assistant, discovered Bluemaxima Flashpoint, a project dedicated to preserving Flash-based content. With their help, Charlie successfully captured the game’s structure and content for RAS to reconstruct it.
Other sources of data
Another key source for reconstructing the game was e-SAFE, UNHCR’s Electronic Document Records Management System (EDRMS). It stored files from two game versions, providing essential materials to complement the BlueMaxima capture. e-SAFE also offered valuable insights into the game’s creation and purpose, highlighting the importance of good records management. Without this data, the English and Spanish versions would have been lost. Additionally, some missing content was recovered from the Internet Archive, enabling the restoration of more language versions. For the remaining gaps, we considered translating XML files from French and Spanish, raising the question of whether this constitutes preservation or restoration.
UNHCR’s commitment to preserving digital memory of now ensures that vital records of global refugee experiences remain accessible for future generations. In an era of rapid technological change, safeguarding these digital legacies is not just preservation—it’s a tribute to resilience and humanity’s shared history.
You can easily access the game, Against All Odds, through this link:
For more information, please contact [email protected].
[1] It is an updated and shortened version of an article that was originally written at: https://www.dpconline.org/blog/wdpd/blog-patricia-sleeman-wdpd