Arlington Public Library Archivist Safeguards Ukraine's Digital Heritage During Wartime

ARLINGTON, VA — Greg Pierce, who works for Arlington Public Library, is part of a global volunteer effort to back up Ukraine’s digital heritage, currently at risk of being erased by the Russian invasion.

Pierce, a digital archivist at the library's Center for Local History, started working with Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online, or SUCHO, in mid-March.

The volunteer organization includes 1,300 cultural heritage professionals — librarians, archivists, researchers and programmers — who are working to identify and archive at-risk sites, digital content and data in Ukrainian cultural heritage institutions.

Pierce works on database verification and task and link wrangling. He ensures each submitted website is not already in the SUCHO system and verifies that digital content does not contain malware before programmers back up the website and databases.

"I'm incredibly grateful that my background as a digital archivist has given me the skills to help out in some way," Pierce said in a statement. "Though I can’t be there physically to help the people of Ukraine, I can certainly gather online with colleagues all over the world to help preserve Ukraine’s digitized cultural heritage.

Librarians and archivists have long been the safeguards of cultural history and heritage during wartime and this is what it looks like in the age of the internet, he said.

In his job at Arlington Public Library, Pierce works at the Center for Local History at Central Library, preserving and archiving historical documents that tell the history of Arlington County.

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