RAG for archives and digital documents
Problem
Archives include scanned documents, mixed formats, uncertain OCR, and complex provenance requirements.
Why RAG helps
RAG can improve discovery while preserving links to source images, records, and metadata.
Recommended architecture
Multimodal RAG with metadata-aware retrieval.
Relevant tools
- Unstructured
- Jina AI
- OpenSearch
- LlamaIndex
- Phoenix / Arize
Risks and precautions
- OCR bias
- Missing provenance
- Overconfident interpretation of historical records
Evaluation criteria
- Provenance traceability
- OCR quality
- Metadata completeness
- Archivist review
Example user questions
- Which scanned files mention this person?
- What is the provenance of this record?
- Which documents contain this handwritten annotation?
Step-by-step implementation path
- Run OCR carefully
- Preserve page images
- Add archival metadata
- Flag uncertain extraction
- Let archivists review answers