Abstract: For over a century the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has carried out excavations in many parts of the world. Some of its most celebrated projects have continued for decades, generating massive paper archives comprised of hundreds of thousands of photographs, object cards, catalogues, field notebooks, plans and drawings. Many of these excavations remain largely unpublished, as scholars have struggled with the daunting size and complexity of the datasets and the very limited opportunities to access the archived excavation records. The Digital Research Archives Project, started by the authors in 2007, is an effort to facilitate research and accelerate publication of these longstanding projects by providing scholars all over the world with continuous access to the materials together with cutting edge tools for collaboration and data-processing. As such, our goal is not just to produce a digital replica of the archives, but to create an online research environment to aid researchers in their task. In our presentation we will discuss some of the ways in which we’ve approached the challenge of building such an environment, some of the results accomplished so far, and lessons learnt along the way. Presented with Gareth Darbyshire and Alex Pezzati.