Accenture picked to build a new data center for the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is getting set to migrate its data to new hosting environments.

This week, the U.S. library said a new data center will be built by Arlington, Va.–based Accenture Federal Services.

“We’re honored to have been chosen by the Library of Congress to deliver this complex and critically important initiative,” Elaine Beeman, Accenture Federal Services’ leader of programs supporting civilian agencies, said in a statement “We recognize this effort is pivotal in achieving the Library’s strategic goal of deploying ‘state-of-the-industry’ technology to expand and speed digital access to its vast collection of books and media. We have assembled the best of Accenture’s technology, data center and cloud professionals to rapidly make this vision a reality.”

Under the terms of the $27.3 million contract, Accenture will design and construct the center, and manage the installation of new software and hardware. The center will be “geographically removed from the District of Columbia,” but the location is not being disclosed, according to a spokesperson.

But it’s a bit more complicated than just building a new center. Accenture is also managing migration, and some of the data will also be moved to cloud environments, both public and private. Teams at Accenture and the Library of Congress will also transition to other systems such as a shared hosting facilities other external services.

Accenture is also conducting a review of the Library of Congress’ current 250 applications, evaluating whether to migrate them, or if they should be consolidated or decommissioned.