Conclusion: Moving on from soup

The archival soup isn’t in fact a soup it’s a core set of common specifications using a machine and human readable language which makes it possible for one municipal archive, two regional archives, five national archives and the European Commission’s eArchiving Building block to transfer information, store the information for “infinitive” time and deliver it to all different kind of users wanting to use the information, use the information for researchers, building applications, doing statistical reposts, prove who they are, all the things you can do with information. This is supported by the advantages of XML and its way of being readable both by machine and humans. That the XML-document can be opened in just a text editor means that it is easy to read our past both now and in the future. This means that the support for XML needs to exist now and further down the road even if we in the archival community as XML users do not take part in all working groups maintaining XML instead being more concerned about the standards, de factostandards or specifications based on XML so we can ensure the past being created now will be present in the future.