Merak takes all the hassle of an internal archive off our hands
24-05-2018 - in Merak newsletter
Since 2014, the Flemish Radio and Television Organisation (VRT) has been using the Merak storage services. Today, Merak stocks more than 12,000 archive boxes of public service broadcasting in its storage centre in Vilvoorde.
The VRT wants to inform the Flemings about what is happening around them and in the world.
The broadcaster connects us to five radio networks, three television networks and a website.
Johnny De Meyer is the Coordinator of Operations at the public service broadcaster and is responsible for the archives among other things.
“In the past, our passive archive was stored in the American Theatre, but by moving to the broadcasting buildings on the Reyerslaan, a solution had to be found for that archive.”
De Meyer: “We have a huge paper archive, including archives of listening games for young people, correspondence from the various directors and administrative bodies, publications, annual reports, the photo archive from the early period of Flemish television, documents and plans of the VRT buildings and scripts of radio and TV programmes.
In total, it accounts for more than 12,000 boxes."
Complete unburdening of the archive
It was impossible for the VRT to stock the archive itself.
“Even if we move to a new building in 2021, there will be no room for that amount of paper”, De Meyer continues.
“The new building does not take into account the storage of our physical archive, only the digitised one.”
Thanks to Merak, the VRT now has a state-of-the-art storage centre that meets its requirements.
De Meyer: “For us, it was crucial that the archive be stored in the best possible conditions.
Room conditioning is important, especially in terms of temperature and humidity.
One of the other requirements we had was the fact that the entire archive had to be easily accessible.
Merak takes all the hassle of an internal archive off our hands.
We don't have to think about anything any more."
Source of inspiration
The passive archive of the VRT is accessed several times daily by internal employees, but also by external production houses and students working on their final thesis.
“For the programme “Van Algemeen Nut” (‘In the Public Interest’), the archive combined with Merak's efficiency was an almost inexhaustible source of inspiration.
It was a talk show where Steven Van Herreweghe invited well-known and lesser-known people who have made a special contribution to 65 years of public service broadcasting, and, with more than 1 million viewers, was hugely popular."
Retrieving the boxes is quick and easy.
“The collaboration with Merak is going very well,” says De Meyer.
“We have an internal archiving system, linked to the numbers we get from Merak.
We know exactly what box a particular paper is in.
If we request something, it will arrive at VRT within 48 hours."
Need help with your request?
Monday to Friday, 8.30am-5.00pm
