LTO Tape

LTO tape was the primary method of preservation storage of all digital files from 2010 (approx.) through 2017, and all mezzanine files from 2017 through 2022.

Storage

All LTO tapes are stored in the Video Lab. There are two tall shelves on the left wall when you enter. They are arranged in numerical order grouped by generation. Most LTO tapes written by BMA have a backup copy stored in the vault.

BMA Conventions

For most of the LTO-creating period, objects were first bagged, then written to LTO. This is very similar to the AIPs that are written to ARCHive, the idea being a neat package of information containing the object and related metadata.

Searching LTOs

To search for an item across all LTOs, you can search the LTO logs (text files that contain simple file lists of what is on each tape). The easiest way to do this is the following command: grep -R texttosearch /path/to/lto/logs/*