In the Spotlight: South Carolina Department of Archives and History

The PeDALS project appealed to Bill Henry of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History for a variety of reasons - the affordable, open-source technology used, the uniqueness of the LOCKSS storage system, and the potential for expansion. Most of all, Henry was impressed with the cooperative nature of the project.

Henry was drawn to PeDALS because the project provided "a great opportunity to work with such a strong community of archivists from around the country."

"When the South Carolina Department of Archives and History did not get funded for a separate digital archives grant last fall, it turned out to be a blessing rather than a failure," said Henry. "The collaborative opportunity represented by the PeDALS project and the PeDALS concept itself were far more appealing than what we had envisioned in our individual grant proposal."

For the first ingest, South Carolina will be contributing orders from the South Carolina Public Service Commission, an agency that hears cases related to the state's utility rates. In the future, South Carolina hopes to contribute State Supreme Court case files from the Judicial Department, voter registration files from the State Election Commission, and the electronic index to death certificates from the Department of Health and Environmental Control.

"The PeDALS project will benefit the citizens of South Carolina in that we will be able to provide public access to historically valuable electronic records for future generations," said Henry. "In addition, PeDALS is allowing the SC Department of Archives and History to finally get into the actual business of archiving electronic records rather than just exploring/thinking about it."