The historical records of the Carnegie Corporation of New York are held by the RBML. They are a heavily-used resource by all kinds of patrons, because the Corporation’s philanthropy over the last century-plus has extended to nearly every corner of American life. Until 2015, all the records were paper-based, but since then the grant records have been electronic and are stored in a proprietary grants management system (GMS) called Fluxx. RBML’s continued stewardship of the Carnegie records is dependent on being able to retrieve the information of long-term value from this system, but the Fluxx GMS has no built-in method for exporting archival records.

After a few years of deliberation with various stakeholders and a couple of false starts, we are happy to share the Fluxx Exporter.  This open-source software, the fruits of a collaboration between the RBML and the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC), was developed by Armanino LLC in conjunction with RAC and RBML, with support from both the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation. It allows Fluxx users and their associated archivists to select and download records of historical value.

Project lead Hillel Arnold, Associate Director of Archives and Chief Digital Strategies Officer at the RAC, describes the process of the software’s development in more detail in this blog post. The Fluxx Exporter will allow RBML to extend its preservation of the records of the Carnegie Corporation’s philanthropy into the digital era.